Shearwin Keith E, Callen Benjamin P, Egan J Barry
School of Molecular and Biomedical Science, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia 5005.
Trends Genet. 2005 Jun;21(6):339-45. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2005.04.009.
The term "transcriptional interference" (TI) is widely used but poorly defined in the literature. There are a variety of methods by which one can interfere with the process or the product of transcription but the term TI usually refers to the direct negative impact of one transcriptional activity on a second transcriptional activity in cis. Two recent studies, one examining Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the other Escherichia coli, clearly show TI at one promoter caused by the arrival of a transcribing complex initiating at a distant promoter. TI is potentially widespread throughout biology; therefore, it is timely to assess exactly its nature, significance and operative mechanisms. In this article, we will address the following questions: what is TI, how important and widespread is it, how does it work and where should we focus our future research efforts?
“转录干扰”（TI）一词在文献中被广泛使用，但定义并不明确。有多种方法可以干扰转录过程或转录产物，但TI这个术语通常指的是一种转录活性对顺式作用下的另一种转录活性产生的直接负面影响。最近的两项研究，一项研究酿酒酵母，另一项研究大肠杆菌，清楚地表明了在一个启动子处发生的TI是由在远处启动子起始转录的转录复合物的到来所引起的。TI可能在整个生物学领域广泛存在；因此，及时准确地评估其本质、意义和作用机制是很有必要的。在本文中，我们将探讨以下问题：什么是TI，它有多重要、多普遍，它是如何起作用的，以及我们未来的研究工作应该聚焦在哪些方面？
