Jason Mooney, Cello

Cello Concerto No. 2 in D major / Joseph Haydn; Silent Woods / Antonin Dvorak; Cello Sonata No. 4 in C Major, Op. 102 No. 1 / Ludwig van Beethove

Jason Mooney, Cello

Danza del la Moza Donosa / Alberto Ginastera; Arioso from Cantata BWV 156 / J.S. Bach; arr. Christopher Adkins; Cello Suite No. 1 in G minor / J.S. Bach; Trois Pièces / Nadia Boulanger; String Quartet Op. 59 No. 2 / Ludwig van Beethove

Jason Mooney, Cello

Cello Concerto in B minor, RV 424 / Antonio Vivaldi; Cello Sonata in A minor, Op. 36 / Edvard Grieg; Graciela y Buenos Aires / José Bragat

Jason Mooney, Cello

Cello Concerto in B minor, RV 424 / Antonio Vivaldi; Cello Sonata in A minor, Op. 36 / Edvard Grieg; Graciela y Buenos Aires / José Bragat

The elemental mechanism of transcriptional pausing.

Transcriptional pausing underlies regulation of cellular RNA biogenesis. A consensus pause sequence that acts on RNA polymerases (RNAPs) from bacteria to mammals halts RNAP in an elemental paused state from which longer-lived pauses can arise. Although the structural foundations of pauses prolonged by backtracking or nascent RNA hairpins are recognized, the fundamental mechanism of the elemental pause is less well-defined. Here we report a mechanistic dissection that establishes the elemental pause signal (i) is multipartite; (ii) causes a modest conformational shift that puts γ-proteobacterial RNAP in an off-pathway state in which template base loading but not RNA translocation is inhibited; and (iii) allows RNAP to enter pretranslocated and one-base-pair backtracked states easily even though the half-translocated state observed in paused cryo-EM structures rate-limits pause escape. Our findings provide a mechanistic basis for the elemental pause and a framework to understand how pausing is modulated by sequence, cellular conditions, and regulators