The paper is titled "Structural visualization of key steps in human transcription initiation." Co-authors are Yuan He, Jie Fang and Dylan Taatjes. The fundamental process of life by which ...

During transcription initiation, a large, multi-molecular machinery assembles on the promoter of a gene, to enable proper positioning of the RNA Polymerase enzyme and commence accurate mRNA synthesis.

The findings, captured within 500 milliseconds of RNAP mixing with DNA, shed light on fundamental mechanisms of transcription, and answer long-standing questions about the initiation mechanism and ...