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Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Getting the latest healthcare news for you
For the first time ever, researchers have filmed a key molecular machine — RNA polymerase II — doing its job inside a living organism rather than a lab dish. Using cryo-electron microscopy on fruit fly embryos, Penn State scientists discovered the machinery is far more variable than anyone expected. The findings could reshape our understanding of how genes are read and regulated in real biological conditions.
For decades, scientists studied RNA polymerase II — the molecular machine that copies DNA instructions into RNA — using purified samples in controlled lab settings. Now, Penn State researchers have captured it in action inside living fruit fly embryos, offering the first-ever real-time look at gene transcription as it actually happens in a cell. Their findings were published in Nature Communications.
The team used cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), a technique that flash-freezes molecules and images them at near-atomic resolution, to study intact "transcription complexes" extracted directly from fruit fly embryos. What they found upended a long-held assumption: while RNA polymerase II was believed to always consist of 12 subunits, some complexes in living cells had only 10 — a variation no one had anticipated.
Key Takeaways:
Why it matters: Understanding how gene transcription really works in living cells — not just in idealized lab conditions — provides a more accurate blueprint of cellular function. This could have downstream implications for medicine, including how we understand gene regulation in disease.
