Biology › Section H · Gene expression and its regulation › Topic H.7
Eukaryotic transcriptional regulation
Eukaryotic RNA polymerase is helpless on its own: it cannot find a gene's start without a retinue of transcription factors assembling first at the promoter. That dependence is the cell's opportunity — hundreds of different factors, each reading a specific DNA motif and responding to a specific signal, tune each gene's output. Enhancers fold in from thousands of bases away, repressors muscle activators aside, and cascades of regulation turn one genome into two hundred cell types.
In this topic
- A polymerase that cannot start alone
- The promoter and its TATA box
- Worked example: assembling the initiation complex, in order
- General and specific transcription factors
- Enhancers: regulation from a distance
- Turning genes off: transcriptional repressors
- Showcase: the Drosophila sex cascade
- Worked example: predicting three perturbations
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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