Curvature of dinucleotide poised for formation of trinucleotide in transcription with Escherichia coli RNA polymerase

A frequently used schematic model of transcriptional elongation shows an RN A polymerase molecule moving along a linear DNA. This model is of course hi ghly idealized and not compatible with promoter sequences [Gralla, J. D. (1 991) Cell 66, 415-418; Schleif, R. (1992) Annu. Rev. Biochem. 61, 199-223] and regulatory proteins [Koleske, A. J., and Young, R. A. (1995) Trends Bio chem. Sci. 20, 113-116; Dunaway, M., and Droge, P. (1989) Nature 341, 657-6 59; Muller, H. P., Sogo, J. M., and Schaffner, W. (1989) Cell 58, 767-777] located some distance away from the point of transcription initiation [Kars ten, R., von Hippel, P. H., and Langowski, J. (1995) Trends Biochem. Sci. 2 0, 500-506]. These circumstances lead to the expectation of curvature along the DNA strand and require looping between sometimes distant points. We ha ve now shown curvature in a dinucleotide formed at the very onset of transc ription when it is poised for reaction with a mononucleotide to form a trin ucleotide. The curvature became evident from the demonstration that a metal ion bound with a mononucleotide in the i+1 (elongation) site is approximat ely equidistant from bases at the 5' end (i-1 site) and 3' end (i site) of the dinucleotide. Similar results were obtained with three different dinucl eotides and four mononucleotides. Curvature of the RNA initiate may reflect curvature of the DNA to which it is bound. These studies show curvature to be a significant feature in the interaction between DNA template and RNA e longate even at the very beginning of transcription.