One of the keys to success in life is to regulate your genes properly. Genes are regulated by transcription factor proteins, which have to navigate their way around the genome and bind particular DNA targets. The problem is that there are only a few correct targets and the genome is large. So an obvious question is, why don’t transcription factors get lost? Do they stop and ask for directions? Where is the information for genome navigation coming from?
The answer to this question is still being worked out for eukaryotes, but it has been solved for E. coli. Peter von Hippel and Otto Berg largely figured out the answer in their classic 1986 paper “On the specificity of DNA protein interactions.” E. coli’s solution for making gene regulation manageable is simple and elegant, because this bacterium has the virtue of possessing a small genome. Let’s take a look at how genome navigation works in a bacterium: Continue reading “How to find your way in E. coli without stopping for directions”
The Finch and Pea 