Yeast RNA polymerase II transcription of circular DNA at different degrees of supercoiling

Purified yeast RNA polymerase II was tested for transcriptional activity as a function of the degree of circular DNA supercoiling. Chimaeric plasmids P30 and P31 both containing inserts from the yeast transposable element TY1 cloned in pBR322 and the vector pBR322 were used as templates. For pBR322 the transcriptional activity increases about 4 fold from the fully relaxed covalently closed circles to the native supercoiled forms, further supercoiling having no effect on transcription. P30 shows a 5 fold increase of transcriptional activity reaching a plateau at the native supercoiled conformation. However, at an intermediate degree of supercoiling (sigma = 0.024), transcription decreases to a value close to zero. P31 too exhibits a conformation (sigma = 0.014) in which there is a drop of transcriptional activity. Furthermore, a 10 fold increase of transcription is obtained at the higher values of superhelix density. Both kinetic and autoradiographic experiments confirm the existence of DNA conformations that can inhibit "in vitro" transcription.