An integrated model of the transcription complex in elongation, termination, and editing.

Recent findings now allow the development of an integrated model of the thermodynamic, kinetic, and structural properties of the transcription complex in the elongation, termination, and editing phases of transcript formation. This model provides an operational framework for placing known facts and can be extended and modified to incorporate new advances. The most complete information about transcriptional mechanisms and their control continues to come from the Escherichia coli system, upon which most of the explicit descriptions provided here are based. The transcriptional machinery of higher organisms, despite its greater inherent complexity, appears to use many of the same general principles. Thus, the lessons of E. coli continue to be relevant.