ASSAYS FOR INVESTIGATING TRANSCRIPTION BY RNA-POLYMERASE-II IN-VITRO

With the availability of the general initiation factors (TFIIB, TFIID, TFIIE, TFIIF, and TFIIH), it is now possible to investigate aspects o f the mechanism of eukaryotic messenger RNA synthesis in purified, rec onstituted RNA polymerase II transcription systems. Rapid progress in these investigations has been spurred by use of a growing number of as says that are proving valuable not only for dissecting the molecular m echanisms of transcription initiation acid elongation by RNA polymeras e II, but also for identifying and purifying novel transcription facto rs that regulate polymerase activity. Here we describe a variety of th ese assays and discuss their utility in the analysis of transcription by RNA polymerase II. (C) 1997 Academic Press.