How DNA encodes the start of transcription

A deep-learning model reveals the rules that define transcription initiation The central dogma of molecular biology outlines the flow of genetic information from DNA to RNA to proteins. With a limited vocabulary of four nucleotides (A, C, G, and T), DNA encodes an extensive instruction set, including the chromosomal positions where RNAs begin to be transcribed and the magnitudes of their expression. This process, known as transcription initiation (1), begins at transcription start sites (TSSs) and depends on RNA polymerase II recruitment to promoter sequences (2). However, the sequences and rules that govern transcription initiation remain elusive. On page 405 of this issue, Dudnyk et al. (3) use an explainable deep-learning model to find a small set of DNA sequence motifs that predict the position and activity of most TSSs in the human genome. The findings define a set of rules that govern transcription initiation and highlight the potential of using deep-learning approaches to understand how information is genetically encoded.

• Publication year

  2024

• Venue

  Science

• Publication date

  2024-04-26

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Computer Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1126/science.adp0869PMID 38662850
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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