Molecular machinery of the transcription initiation by RNA polymerase II

Abstract

Transcription is the first stage of the realization of genetic information. In recent years, substantial progress in understanding of this process has been achieved. Eukaryotic cell nuclei were shown to possess extremely complex transcription machinery consisting of more that a hundred different factors. A series of our reviews is devoted to the first step of the transcription process, which is of key significance for the control of gene expression: transcription initiation on the genes transcribed by RNA polymerase II. This paper gives a short description of the main factors involved in this process. © 2005 Pleiades Publishing, Inc.