A crucial step in transcription is the recruitment of RNA polymerase to promoters. In the transcription of human rRNA genes by RNA Polymerase I (Pol I), transcription factor SL1 has a role as the essential core promoter binding factor. Little is known about the mechanism by which Pol I is recruited. We provide evidence for an essential role for hRRN3, the human homologue of a yeast Pol I transc...

DNA polymerase kappa (Pol kappa) is a newly identified low-fidelity polymerase implicated in spontaneous and DNA damage-induced mutagenesis. As an initial study to investigate its possible involvement in tumorigenesis, we compared the expression level of Pol kappa in tumors and adjacent nontumorous tissues by Northern blot, semiquantitative RT-PCR, and Western blot analyses. In this study, pair...

On page 1191, Delbos and colleagues provide the first proof that the errorprone polymerase (pol ) is responsible for mutations at A-T base pairs during somatic hypermutation (SHM) of immunoglobulin (Ig) genes in mice. But when pol is removed from mice, another sloppy enzyme, not previously thought to contribute to SHM, can fill in as a pinch hitter. SHM generates high affinity antibodies in res...

Faithful transcription of DNA is constantly threatened by different endogenous and environmental genotoxic effects. Transcription coupled repair (TCR) has been described to stop transcription and quickly remove DNA lesions from the transcribed strand of active genes, permitting rapid resumption of blocked transcription. This repair mechanism has been well characterized in the past using individ...

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) utilizes RNA polymerase II to transcribe viral genes and produce viral mRNAs. It can specifically target the nucleolus to facilitate viral transcription and translation. As RNA polymerase I (Pol I)-mediated transcription is active in the nucleolus, we investigated the role of Pol I, along with relative contributions of the human Pol II and Pol III, to early phases o...

The prevailing hypothesis of HIV budding posits that the viral Gag protein drives budding, and that the Gag p6 peptide plays an essential role by recruiting host-cell budding factors to sites of HIV assembly. HIV also expresses a second Gag protein, p160 Gag-Pol, which lacks p6 and fails to bud from cells, consistent with the prevailing hypothesis of HIV budding. However, we show here that the ...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) polymerase (Pol) interacts with cellular chaperone proteins and thereby performs multiple functions necessary for viral replication. Yeast two-hybrid analysis was applied to identify additional cellular targets required for HBV Pol function. HBV Pol interacted with S100A10 (p11), a Ca(2+)-modulated protein previously shown to bind to annexin II. The interaction between H...

Transcription in eukaryotic nuclei is carried out by DNA-dependent RNA polymerases I, II, and III. Human RNA polymerase III (Pol III) transcribes small untranslated RNAs that include tRNAs, 5S RNA, U6 RNA, and some microRNAs. Increased Pol III transcription has been reported to accompany or cause cell transformation. Here we describe a Pol III subunit (RPC32beta) that led to the demonstration o...

The 35S rRNA genes at the RDN1 locus in Saccharomyces cerevisiae can be transcribed by RNA polymerase (Pol) II in addition to Pol I, but Pol II transcription is usually silenced. The deletion of RRN9 encoding an essential subunit of the Pol I transcription factor, upstream activation factor, is known to abolish Pol I transcription and derepress Pol II transcription of rRNA genes, giving rise to...

DNA polymerase IV (Pol IV) is one of three translesion polymerases in Escherichia coli. A mass spectrometry study revealed that single-stranded DNA-binding protein (SSB) in lysates prepared from exponentially-growing cells has a strong affinity for column-immobilized Pol IV. We found that purified SSB binds directly to Pol IV in a pull-down assay, whereas SSBΔC8, a mutant protein lacking the C-...