Research sheds light on the mechanics of gene tra...(est the generality of the findings beyon...)

Looking at the location of co-regulated heat shock genes (genes that are transcribed simultaneously), they found that co-regulated pairs that occupied distinct sites before heat shock were no closer together after heat shock. As in the polytene chromosomes, the genes did not move to a single site for transcription.

And using fluorescence recovery after photobleaching -- another method engineered by Webb -- the researchers found that over time Pol II began to recycle itself within newly formed "compartments" around the activated gene.

"At some point you accumulate enough polymerase that it feeds back, so in a sense you've created a factory de novo" said Lis. "This is, to our knowledge, the first demonstration of Pol II recycling at a specific gene in vivo."

Lis and colleagues are now looking at other molecules involved in transcription to see if they behave similarly. "We're hoping to develop new ways to really see, in vivo, how gene regulation works mechanistically," he said.

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