Chinese Journal of Nature ›› 2023, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (1): 33-44.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.0253-9608.2022.05.010

• Review Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Advances in single-molecule investigation of dynamic DNA transcription regulation by RNA polymerase

HAO Li, JIANG Ting, FAN Jun   

  1. Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China
  • Received:2022-07-13 Online:2023-02-25 Published:2023-02-21

Abstract: Eukaryotic RNA polymerase II (Pol II) and prokaryotic RNA polymerase (RNAP) are mainly dedicated to messenger RNA (mRNA) synthesis, influencing the growth and development of organisms as well as in response to complicated environment conditions by regulating the transcriptional level of different genes. Clusters assembled by RNA polymerases were observed using conventional fluorescence microscopy, which was proposed as a “transcription factories” model for DNA transcription regulation. However, along with the development of single-molecule technology, dynamic regulation of transcription by RNAP was observed at single-molecule level, which thus raised the liquid-liquid phase separation model of RNAP transcription regulation. This paper reviewed the technical principles of multiple single-molecule fluorescent microscopies and the related labeling strategies via fluorescence probes. The advances in application of single-molecule technology in visualizing dynamic DNA transcription regulation of RNA polymerase were presented for both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The application prospects of transcription regulation investigation using single-molecule technologies are introduced briefly at the end of this paper.