Mechanism of Transcription Anti-termination in Human Mitochondria

In human mitochondria, transcription termination events at a G-quadruplex region near the replication origin are thought to drive replication of mtDNA by generation of an RNA primer. This process is suppressed by a key regulator of mtDNA—the transcription factor TEFM. We determined the structure of an anti-termination complex in which TEFM is bound to transcribing mtRNAP. The structure reveals interactions of the dimeric pseudonuclease core of...