Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Malleable Machines In Transcription Regulation: The Mediator Complex, Ágnes Tóth-Petróczy, Christopher J. Oldfield, István Simon, Yuichiro Takagi, A. Keith Dunker, Vladimir N. Uversky, Monika Fuxreiter

Molecular Medicine Faculty Publications

The Mediator complex provides an interface between gene-specific regulatory proteins and the general transcription machinery including RNA polymerase II (RNAP II). The complex has a modular architecture (Head, Middle, and Tail) and cryoelectron microscopy analysis suggested that it undergoes dramatic conformational changes upon interactions with activators and RNAP II. These rearrangements have been proposed to play a role in the assembly of the preinitiation complex and also to contribute to the regulatory mechanism of Mediator. In analogy to many regulatory and transcriptional proteins, we reasoned that Mediator might also utilize intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) to facilitate structural transitions and transmit …