How genes are read

The mediator protein is needed to activate RNA polymerase II, the enzyme responsible for reading genes.

This protein is made up of different parts and one of these, known as Cdk8, inhibits the mediator protein, which means the protein can regulate itself. This is new: Until now it was thought the protein only provided a link between an active gene and the enzyme RNA polymerase II. Jeroen van de Peppel puts this forward in his doctoral thesis, in which he used DNA chips to try to learn more about the function of the mediator protein.

Van Peppel received his PhD from Utrecht University on September 15. His thesis is titled 'Genome-wide analysis of the mediator transcription complex'.