In the study of bacteria, a longstanding dogma held that two molecular machines ' RNA polymerase, which leads the way in transcribing DNA into RNA, and ribosomes, which bring up the rear translating RNA into proteins ' worked so closely in tandem that they were effectively attached. This close coupling of transcription and translation in bacteria was thought to be fundamental to gene expression in part because the trailing ribosome could shield nascent gene products from an effective and omnipresent quality-control protein called Rho. In bacteria that exhibit something called runaway transcription, however, the polymerase instead speeds ahead, unhitched from its protective ribosome. Inexplicably, however, in bacteria that exhibit this runaway transcription, such as Bacillus subtilis, Rho targeted primarily noncoding, useless RNA products. 'We started with a hypothesis that Rho was regulated by sequence, but the fact that the sequence alone was enough to protect any gene in the...
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