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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Flint Stevenson-Jones, Dr Jason Woodgate, Daniel Castro-Roa, Professor Nikolay ZenkinORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).In bacteria, the first two steps of gene expression-transcription and translation-are spatially and temporally coupled. Uncoupling may lead to the arrest of transcription through RNA polymerase backtracking, which interferes with replication forks, leading to DNA double-stranded breaks and genomic instability. How transcription-translation coupling mitigates these conflicts is unknown. Here we show that, unlike replication, translation is not inhibited by arrested transcription elongation complexes. Instead, the translating ribosome actively pushes RNA polymerase out of the backtracked state, thereby reactivating transcription. We show that the distance between the two machineries upon their contact on mRNA is smaller than previously thought, suggesting intimate interactions between them. However, this does not lead to the formation of a stable functional complex between the enzymes, as was once proposed. Our results reveal an active, energy-driven mechanism that reactivates backtracked elongation complexes and thus helps suppress their interference with replication.
Author(s): Stevenson-Jones F, Woodgate J, Castro-Roa D, Zenkin N
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Year: 2020
Volume: 117
Issue: 15
Pages: 8462-8467
Print publication date: 14/04/2020
Online publication date: 01/01/2020
Acceptance date: 02/04/2016
Date deposited: 28/04/2020
ISSN (print): 0027-8424
ISSN (electronic): 1091-6490
Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
URL: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1919985117
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1919985117
PubMed id: 32238560
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