Promoter proximal pausing and the control of gene expression

The advent of methods for mapping the location of specific proteins across genomes is substantially enlightening our understanding of gene regulation. One recent discovery is that Pol II is concentrated at the 5′ end of thousands of genes in mammalian and Drosophila cells. Before this, much research had focused on understanding how sequence-specific, DNA-binding proteins orchestrate the actions of regulators of chromatin structure and the general transcriptional machinery to control transcription initiation. The concentration of Pol II at the 5′ ends of genes indicates that key steps regulating transcription occur after Pol II has associated with a gene's promoter.