required for various types of RNA processing. mRNA is capped as soon as it emerges from the RNA-exit channel of the polymerase. After capping, dephosphorylation of Ser-5 within the CTD repeats may be responsible for dissociation of the capping machinery. Further phosphorylation of Ser-2 causes recruitment of the RNA splicing machinery that catalyzes the removal of non-coding introns to generate mature mRNA. Alternative splicing expands the protein complements in eukaryotes. Just as with 5’-capping and splicing, the CTD tail is involved in recruiting enzymes responsible for 3’-polyadenylation, the final RNA processing event that is coupled with the termination of transcription. Termination The last stage of transcription is termination, which leads to the dissociation of the complete transcript and the release of RNA polymerase from the template DNA.The process differs for each of the three RNA polymerases. The mechanism of termination is the least understood of the three transcription stages. Factor-dependent The termination of transcription of pre-rRNA genes by polymerase Pol I is performed by a system that needs a specific transcription termination factor. The mechanism used bears some resemblance to the rho-dependent termination in prokaryotes. Eukaryotic cells contain hundreds of ribosomal DNA repeats, sometimes distributed over multiple chromosomes. Termination of transcription occurs in the ribosomal intergenic spacer region that contains several transcription termination sites upstream of a Pol I pausing site. Through a yet unknown mechanism, the 3’-end of the transcript is cleaved, generating a large primary rRNA molecule that is further processed into the mature 18S, 5.8S and 28S rRNAs. As Pol II reaches the end of a gene, two protein complexes carried by the CTD, CPSF (cleavage and polyadenylation specificity factor) and CSTF (cleavage stimulation factor), recognize the poly-A signal in the transcribed RNA. Poly-A-bound CPSF and CSTF recruit other proteins to carry out RNA cleavage and then polyadenylation. Poly-A polymerase adds approximately 200 adenines to the cleaved 3’ end of the RNA without a template. The long poly-A tail is unique to transcripts made by Pol II. In the process of terminating transcription by Pol I and Pol II, the elongation complex does not dissolve immediately after the RNA is cleaved. The polymerase continues to move along the template, generating a second RNA molecule associated with the elongation complex. Two models have been proposed to explain how termination is achieved at last. The allosteric model states that when transcription proceeds through the termination sequence, it causes disassembly