Nature Communications (Dec 2020)

Mycobacterial HelD is a nucleic acids-clearing factor for RNA polymerase

  • Tomáš Kouba,
  • Tomáš Koval’,
  • Petra Sudzinová,
  • Jiří Pospíšil,
  • Barbora Brezovská,
  • Jarmila Hnilicová,
  • Hana Šanderová,
  • Martina Janoušková,
  • Michaela Šiková,
  • Petr Halada,
  • Michal Sýkora,
  • Ivan Barvík,
  • Jiří Nováček,
  • Mária Trundová,
  • Jarmila Dušková,
  • Tereza Skálová,
  • URee Chon,
  • Katsuhiko S. Murakami,
  • Jan Dohnálek,
  • Libor Krásný

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20158-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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The bacterial helicase-like transcription factor HelD associates with the RNA polymerase (RNAP) and recycles stalled transcription complexes. Here, the authors present the cryo-EM structures of three Mycobacterium smegmatis HelD bound RNAP complexes and further show that HelD can prevent the binding of the RNAP core to non-specific DNA and also actively removes RNAP from stalled elongation complexes.