Rewrite the textbooks: Transcription is bidirectional

Genes that contain instructions for making proteins make up less than 2% of the human genome. Yet, for unknown reasons, most of our genome is transcribed into RNA. The same is true for many other organisms that are easier to study than humans. Researchers in the groups of Lars Steinmetz at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and Wolfgang Huber at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in Hinxton, UK, have now unravelled how yeast generates its transcripts and have come a step closer to understanding their function. The study, published online in Nature, redefines the concept of promoters (the start sites of transcription) contradicting the established notion that they support transcription in one direction only. The results are also representative of transcription in humans.

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