Reiterative transcription initiation from galP2 promoter of Escherichia coli

The expression of gal operon in Escherichia coli is driven by two promoters, P1 and P2 separated by 5 bp. The transcription initiated from the P2 generates a large amount of abortive transcripts to produce a comparable amount of full-length transcript as P1 in vitro. In this study, we investigated the source of the abortive transcripts by employing a quantitative potassium permanganate footprinting method that determines the extent of open promoter complex formation. The extents of open promoter complex formation at the two gal promoters were about the same during the given reaction time while the amount of transcription initiation determined by in vitro transcription assay showed a conside…