The Structure of Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) Polymerase (Essay Sample)

Structure of RNA polymerase
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Structure of RNA polymerase
The ribonucleic acid polymerase is an enzyme that is accountable for coping a deoxyribonucleic acid sequence into a ribonucleic acid sequence during transcription. The polymerase is made up of protein subunits and controls the transcription process. During the transcription process, the information that is stored in the deoxyribonucleic acid gets copied into a novel molecule of ribonucleic acid. Even though the composition and number of these proteins differ across taxa, ribonucleic polymerases are found in all species. For example, while yeast and multicellular organisms have three distinctive types of polymerases, bacteria are made up of only a single type of ribonucleic acid polymerase. Irrespective of these dissimilarities, striking resemblances exist among transcriptional mechanisms.
In eukaryotes, the transcription of deoxyribonucleic acid to ribonucleic acid is catalyzed by the ribonucleic acid polymerases that are structurally associated. Each of these polymerases acts on a different class of genes, with ribonucleic polymerase I responsible for synthesizing most of the ribosomal ribonucleic acid subunits. On the other hand, ribonucleic acid polymerase III synthesizes 5S rRibonucleic acid, tRNAs as well as other small ribonucleic acids. Nevertheless, Ribonucleic acid II, which is the most studied, transcribes the genes that code for protein, small nucleolar ribonucleic acids, and small nuclear ribonucleic acids. RNA polymerase II is responsible for generating long non-coding ribonucleic acid and microribonucleic acid in higher eukaryotes (Zhang et al., 2012). Apart from that, Pol II also takes part in the transcription of cryptic unsteady transcripts as well as stable unnottated transcripts, which get degraded after synthesis.
Cryptic unstable transcripts’ suppression is essential to avert unsuitable transcription inside the ORFs. This is to heighten processivity during the elongation step in transcription as well as to avert the silencing of genes through the deacetylation of histone. Of the twelve polymerase II subunits, five of them are common among the three polymerases, and it is alleged that the particular functions that are accredited to every polymerase stem from the pooled action of residual non-alike subunits as well as other factors that relate with them. The carboxy-terminal domain (CTD) of its large Rpb1 subunit is one of the unique features of polymerase II. The Carboxy-terminal domain acts as the chief contact point for a wide variety of molecular machines that are involved in ribonucleic acid biogenesis during the transcription