{"id":21068,"date":"2026-03-04T11:35:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T06:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theeducationoverview.in\/?p=21068"},"modified":"2026-03-04T11:35:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T06:05:40","slug":"indian-scientists-helped-rewrite-a-50-year-old-biological-rule-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theeducationoverview.in\/?p=21068","title":{"rendered":"Indian scientists helped rewrite a 50-year-old biological rule"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Indian scientists helped rewrite a 50-year-old biological rule<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

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Posted On: 02 MAR 2026 3:38PM by PIB Delhi<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
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A new study overturns a central textbook model of bacterial gene regulation and unveils new paths for understanding bacterial gene regulation and its evolution.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This could help designing better antibiotics or regulatory inhibitors that block infection mechanism and design microorganisms that produce biofuels, biodegradable plastics, or therapeutic compounds efficiently.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

For nearly 50 years, biology has related the story of how bacteria turn their genes on with the help of the so-called \u201c\u03c3 (sigma) cycle\u201d \u2013 factors that bind RNA polymerase to initiate transcription and then dissociate to allow elongation. This concept was built largely on observations of bacterial strain E. coli \u03c370.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

However, Researchers from the Bose Institute, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Rutgers University reveal that the cycle is not a universal phenomenon.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In a study published in the\u00a0Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em>\u00a0(PNAS) they have reported that, contrary to decades of scientific belief, the principal transcription initiation factor in\u00a0Bacillus subtilis<\/em>\u2014\u03c3A\u2014and a modified version of the\u00a0Escherichia coli<\/em>\u00a0\u03c370 factor remain bound to RNA polymerase throughout transcription, rather than being released after initiation.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"A<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur work shows that in\u00a0Bacillus subtilis<\/em>, the \u03c3A factor stays attached to RNA polymerase all the way through the transcription process,\u201d said Dr. Jayanta Mukhopadhyay, corresponding author from the Bose Institute. \u201cThis fundamentally changes how we think about bacterial transcription and gene regulation.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Using a combination of modern techniques like biochemical assays, chromatin immunoprecipitation, and fluorescence-based imaging \u2014 the researchers watched the sigma factor\u2019s behaviour in real time. They found that\u00a0Bacillus subtilis<\/em>\u00a0\u03c3A and an\u00a0E. coli<\/em>\u00a0\u03c370 variant lacking a part called 1.1 remain stably associated with transcription complexes. This is in stark contrast to full-length E. coli \u03c370, which is released stochastically during elongation.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese findings provide compelling evidence that the long-accepted \u03c3 cycle does not apply to all bacteria,\u201d added co-author Aniruddha Tewari of Bose Institute. \u201cIt opens new avenues for understanding bacterial gene regulation and its evolution.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The discovery has broad implications for microbiology, potentially influencing how researchers approach bacterial physiology, stress response, and the development of antibiotics targeting transcription.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The study, was authored by Aniruddha Tewary, Shreya Sengupta, Soumya Mukherjee, Nilanjana Hazra, from Bose Institute and YWE and RHE and Yon W. Ebright, Richard H. Ebright, and Jayanta Mukhopadhyay from Rutgers University, USA<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indian scientists helped rewrite a 50-year-old biological rule Posted On: 02 MAR 2026 3:38PM by PIB Delhi A new study overturns a central textbook model of bacterial gene regulation and unveils new paths for understanding bacterial gene regulation and its evolution. This could help designing better antibiotics or regulatory inhibitors that block infection mechanism and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theeducationoverview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theeducationoverview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theeducationoverview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theeducationoverview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theeducationoverview.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21068"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theeducationoverview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21070,"href":"https:\/\/theeducationoverview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21068\/revisions\/21070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theeducationoverview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theeducationoverview.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theeducationoverview.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theeducationoverview.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}