Replication-transcription conflicts in bacteria.
DNA replication and transcription use the same template and occur concurrently in bacteria. The lack of temporal and spatial separation of these two processes leads to their conflict, and failure to deal with this conflict can result in genome alterations and reduced fitness. In recent years major advances have been made in understanding how cells avoid conflicts between replication and transcription and how such conflicts are resolved when they do occur. In this Review, we summarize these findings, which shed light on the significance of the problem and on how bacterial cells deal with unwanted encounters between the replication and transcription machineries.
Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Houra
H
Merrikh
Yan
Y
Zhang
Alan D
AD
Grossman
Jue D
JD
Wang
D001419:Bacteria / Q000166:cytology* / Q000235:genetics*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D004261:DNA Replication / Q000235:genetics*; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial / Q000502:physiology*; D024363:Transcription Initiation Site; D014158:Transcription, Genetic / Q000502:physiology*
D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D004269:DNA, Bacterial