Rachel Anne Mooney

This study investigates how ppGpp regulates RNA polymerase pausing and nucleotide addition through allosteric effects and GTP competition in E. coli.

The paper introduces RNAP-seq, an in vitro method to study transcriptional pausing, and finds that CdfRNAP pauses more frequently at T-rich antisense regions compared to EcoRNAP.

The paper shows RapA disrupts post-termination complexes in E. coli to prevent R-loop formation and maintain genome stability.

The paper reports cryo-EM structures of E. coli intrinsic termination complexes to define the structural mechanism of bacterial transcription termination.

This study identifies MtbNusG as a pro-pausing transcription factor that stabilizes paused RNAP through specific structural interactions, with implications for NusG function across domains of life.

The paper uses chemical-genetic analysis of RNA polymerase mutants to uncover structure-function relationships and physiological trade-offs in Escherichia coli.

The paper investigates the role of RNA polymerase clamp movements in intrinsic termination, finding that clamp opening affects elongation rate more than termination rate and that RNA can release from closed clamps.