Definition
Transcription is composed of three distinct steps: initiation, elongation, and termination. In a strict sense, transcription initiation is a step of the first phosphodiester bond formation. However, RNA polymerase(RNAP), which catalyzes RNA synthesis, often fails to achieve productive initiation and instead engages in repeated cycles of abortive initiation accompanied by iterative synthesis and the release of short transcripts (2–10 nt). After this idling step, RNAP undergoes conformational stabilization and becomes fully committed to elongation. In general, transcription initiation describes this entire process, including the transition state prior to elongation. In addition to RNAP, a set of general transcription factors (GTFs) are required for transcription initiation since RNAP itself cannot bind to the core promoter. Some GTFs first bind to the core promoter and then recruit both RNAP and additional GTFs to form the...
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Kokubo, T. (2013). Transcription Initiation in Eukaryote. In: Dubitzky, W., Wolkenhauer, O., Cho, KH., Yokota, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Systems Biology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9863-7_1406
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9863-7_1406
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