Determining the effect of RPA49 on RNA polymerase I occupancy in vivo
The central goal of this project was to determine the role of the RNA polymerase I (Pol I) subunits RPA34 and RPA49 in rRNA synthesis. Previous studies by various groups have demonstrated that these two subunits may play a role in transcription initiation and elongation by  on Pol I occupancy in vivo, but this is still not clearly defined. Here, we deployed a high-resolution technique, native elongating transcript sequencing (NET-seq), to test the effects of RPA34 and RPA49 on Pol I occupancy in vivo. We found that when RPA34 was deleted, there was a significant reduction in Pol I occupancy across the rDNA template. Additionally, when RPA49 was deleted, Pol I occupancy was even further reduced across the template. Collectively, our findings suggest that perhaps RPA34 acts to stabilize RPA49 and these subunits may act primarily as transcription initiation factors for Pol I. Overall design: NET-seq was conducted in triplicate for three strains of yeast: wild-type (WT), rpa34?, and rpa49?. The WT strain was used as the control.