RNAP at the apex: Cryo-ET unveils the torsional tango between plasmid DNA and double-helix-melting proteins
dlvr.it
In this issue, Zhang and Cañari-Chumpitaz et al. find that RNA polymerase (RNAP) preferentially binds to the apices of supercoiled DNA plectonemes, which facilitates promoter escape but imposes a torsional trade-off during elongation. In the presence of torsional blocks, it generates twin supercoiling domains and drives cooperative transcription.
