About
Séminaire du Département de Biologie Structurale et Chimie
Tuesday 1 october 2019 at 2.00 pm
François Jacob Auditorium room – CFJ RdC 17c
Prof. Xiadong Zhang
Section of Structural Biology, Department of Infectious Diseases, Imperial College London- 104, Sir Alexander Fleming Building, South Kensington
Structures and Mechanisms of Transcription Initiation and Regulation
Gene transcription is a fundamental cellular process that is carried out by the multi-subunit RNA polymerase (RNAP), which is conserved from bacteria to human. Transcription is highly controlled and many regulatory factors/strategies act on initiation, which involves the opening up the double-strand DNA into single strands and the delivery of the DNA template into the RNAP active centre. Transcription initiation is a highly dynamic process, and has thus been difficult to be studied structurally. We use a special form of bacterial RNAP, which allows us to trap intermediate states. I will discuss our recent progress in unravelling the detailed molecular mechanism of transcription initiation process including how DNA is opened up and delivered into the active centre for transcription and the roles of specialised activator proteins that belong to the large AAA ATPase family.
Contact: Ludovic Sauguet
Structural Dynamics of macromolecules
Ludovic.sauguet@pasteur.fr