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. 1985 Jul;82(14):4638–4642. doi: 10.1073/pnas.82.14.4638

Electron microscopic visualization of trp operon expression in Salmonella typhimurium.

S French, K Martin, T Patterson, R Bauerle, O L Miller Jr
PMCID: PMC390441  PMID: 3895222

Abstract

Transcriptional activity of plasmids carrying wild-type and mutant trp operons was visualized in cell lysates of Salmonella typhimurium. Plasmid and transcription-unit sizes varied with the size of the cloned operon. Following 3-(3-indolyl)acrylic acid derepression, all operons of a particular type exhibited the same high level of transcriptional activity. An estimated 11-14 transcripts must be initiated each minute to maintain the 190-base-pair spacing of RNA polymerases observed on the promoter-proximal half of the wild-type trp operon. A decline in RNA polymerase density was observed on promoter-distal portions of cloned trp operons, which may be attributable to premature transcription termination accompanying translation inhibition due to indolylacrylic acid's interference with normal tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetase activity.

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Selected References

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