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Science 25 January 2008:
Vol. 319. no. 5862, pp. 466 - 469
DOI: 10.1126/science.1150559
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Reports

Concurrent Fast and Slow Cycling of a Transcriptional Activator at an Endogenous Promoter

Tatiana S. Karpova,1 Min J. Kim,1 Corentin Spriet,2 Kip Nalley,1 Timothy J. Stasevich,1 Zoulika Kherrouche,3 Laurent Heliot,2 James G. McNally1*

For gene regulation, some transcriptional activators bind periodically to promoters with either a fast (~1 minute) or a slow (~15 to 90 minutes) cycle. It is uncertain whether the fast cycle occurs on natural promoters, and the function of either cycle in transcription remains unclear. We report that fast and slow cycling can occur simultaneously on an endogenous yeast promoter and that slow cycling in this system reflects an oscillation in the fraction of accessible promoters rather than the recruitment and release of stably bound transcriptional activators. This observation, combined with single-cell measurements of messenger RNA (mRNA) production, argues that fast cycling initiates transcription and that slow cycling regulates the quantity of mRNA produced. These findings counter the prevailing view that slow cycling initiates transcription.

1 Center for Cancer Research Core Imaging Facility, Laboratory of Receptor Biology and Gene Expression, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, 41 Library Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
2 Interdisciplinary Research Institute, Lille University of Science and Technology, CNRS USR 3078, 59021 Lille Cedex, France.
3 Institut Pasteur de Lille, UMR 8161, Institut de Biologie de Lille, 1 rue Calmette, 59021 Lille Cedex, France.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mcnallyj{at}exchange.nih.gov

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)