Question

1. Bacterial transcription initiation

a. What are the major components of a bacterial promoter? Do you understand their nomenclature (i.e. how are they related to the transcription start site)?

b. What is the function of each promoter element during initiation?

c. What sequence-based factors contribute to promoter strength?

d. Why are there multiple sigma factors? How do they function to turn on different genes?

e. Why are short (<10 nt) abortive products possible during transcription intiation? What happens to RNAP when these products are released?

f. What changes in the RNAP holoenzyme occur following promoter escape?