Research
Hierarchical buffering of cellular RNA polymerase II pools maintains transcriptional homeostasis
Molecular Cell · By Alexander Gillis, Roberta Cacioppo, Pei Qin Ng, Benjamin Haworth, Hongpei Li, Bailey Hiles-Murison, Ana Tufegdžić Vidaković & Scott Berry ·
The Brief
- Gillis et al. combined quantitative single-cell imaging with genomic techniques to study transcription after acute changes in RNA polymerase II abundance.
- The study reports that total mRNA production is buffered against altered polymerase levels.
- The work is published in Molecular Cell (cell.com, dated 2026-11-09).
Why it matters
The findings suggest cells maintain steady transcription output even when the amount of RNA polymerase II changes, which matters for interpreting experiments that perturb transcription machinery.
Who’s affected
- molecular and cell biologists studying gene expression
- researchers working on transcriptional regulation
- #rna polymerase ii
- #transcription
- #gene expression
- #homeostasis
- #single-cell imaging
Gillis et al. integrate quantitative single-cell imaging with genomic techniques to examine transcriptional homeostasis following acute perturbation of RNA polymerase II abundance. This work demonstrates that total mRNA production is buffered against altered polymerase abundance…
Timeline
Study published on cell.com in Molecular Cell
cell.com
Hierarchical buffering of cellular RNA polymerase II pools maintains transcriptional homeostasis