NanoRNA-mediated priming of transcription initiation alters gene expression. NanoRNAs (2- to 5-nt RNAs) can either be degraded by Oligoribonuclease (Orn) or used by RNAP as primers to initiate transcription. Compared with initiation with NTPs only (i.e. de novo), initiation with nanoRNAs could, in principle, alter gene expression by increasing yields of transcripts, altering the sequence of the 5′ ends of transcripts, or altering the phosphorylation status of the 5′ ends of transcripts.