Transcriptional pausing of RNA polymerase II

To make the proteins in all of our cells, the genetic information that is stored in DNA is first copied to mRNA and then translated to the polypeptide chain. RNA polymerase II is responsible fort the first step, and it proceeds in a discontinuous fashion with about half of its time spent in pauses. Experimental and theoretical studies on single molecules of RNAP II identify a pause state that proceeds as a random walk, which can generate pauses of durations that bridge scales of time.