Abstract
Transcription is a fundamental process that mediates the interplay between genetic information and phenotype. Emerging evidence indicates that RNA polymerase II (Pol II) can catalyze transcription using both DNA and RNA templates. It is well established that Pol II initiates de novo transcription on DNA templates. However, it is unclear whether Pol II performs de novo transcription or relies on primers for initiation (primed transcription) on RNA templates. Using potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd) as a model, we presented evidence showing that circular PSTVd templates are critical for the synthesis of longer-than-unit-length (−)-strand products, which supports the de novo transcription based on the asymmetric rolling circle model of PSTVd replication. We further showed that the crucial factor for primed transcription, transcription factor IIS (TFIIS), is dispensable for PSTVd replication in cells. Together, our data support the de novo transcription on PSTVd RNA templates catalyzed by Pol II. This result has significant implications in understanding the mechanism and machinery underlying Pol II-catalyzed transcription using other RNA templates.
Highlights
Transcription is a fundamental process that mediates the interplay between genetic information and phenotype and is vital for development, responses to environmental cues, and diseases [1,2,3,4]
II) as an example, TFIID binds to DNA promoters and allures TFIIB, thereby constituting a platform to assemble the preinitiation complex (PIC) that includes TFIIA, TFIIB, TFIID, TFIIE, TFIIF, and TFIIH [13]
The bacterial dependentRNA polymerases (DdRPs) initiates de novo transcription when using the 6S RNA template [33], the evidence clearly shows that polymerase II (Pol II) utilizes the fold-back 30 -end in the B2 RNA terminal loop as the primer to extend the B2 RNA [34]
Summary
Transcription is a fundamental process that mediates the interplay between genetic information and phenotype and is vital for development, responses to environmental cues, and diseases [1,2,3,4]. The bacterial DdRP initiates de novo transcription when using the 6S RNA template [33], the evidence clearly shows that Pol II utilizes the fold-back 30 -end in the B2 RNA terminal loop as the primer to extend the B2 RNA [34]. This extension demonstrates that Pol II can perform the so-called primed transcription in eukaryotic cells, which is further supported by investigating the active Pol II structure on RNA templates [36].
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