Direct Detection of Abortive RNA Transcripts in Vivo

Identifying Abortive Initiation During transcription initiation in vitro, the RNA polymerase enzyme typically engages in cycles of synthesis and release of short RNA transcripts (“abortive initiation”) before breaking interactions with promoter DNA and beginning transcription elongation. Using hybridization methods developed to detect microRNAs, Goldman et al. (p. 927 ) directly detected products of abortive initiation in bacterial cells in vivo. Abortive initiation increased when interactions between RNA polymerase and the promoter were strengthened or when transcription was prevented. Thus, products of abortive initiation may help to regulate gene expression.