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. 1994 Nov 25;22(23):4932–4936. doi: 10.1093/nar/22.23.4932

Role of a small RNA pol II subunit in TATA to transcription start site spacing.

E M Furter-Graves 1, B D Hall 1, R Furter 1
PMCID: PMC523758  PMID: 7800482

Abstract

The yeast shi mutation affects the spacing between the TATA promoter element and transcription initiation sites; for the H2B and ADH1 genes, a series of start sites located approximately 50-80 bp downstream of TATA is used in addition to the wild-type initiation sites located at around 100 bp from TATA (1). Here, the yeast SHI wild-type gene has been isolated by complementation and shown to be identical to RPB9, the gene encoding a small subunit of RNA polymerase II. A point mutation in the shi gene, changing a cysteine residue in a putative zinc ribbon motif into a phenylalanine residue, was demonstrated to permit the observed usage of upstream initiation sites. Deletion of the non-essential SHI gene also results in usage of upstream initiation sites and causes conditional growth defects.

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Selected References

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