Figure 2.
R-loops participate in gene regulation. A) At promoters, R-loops activate transcription by preventing binding of transcriptional repressors or DNA methylating enzymes (DNMT), or by acting as binding sites for transcription factors (top left). Alternatively, R-loops repress transcription by blocking transcription factor binding (bottom left). B) At terminators, R-loops facilitate efficient transcription termination by promoting RNAP II pausing and cleavage of the transcript from its template either by recruiting R-loop resolution helicases and RNases (bottom right), or by recruiting the RNAi silencing machinery (top right).