of elongation factors and/or an assembly of termination factors that cause conformational changes of the elongation complex. The torpedo model suggests that a 5' to 3' exonuclease degrades the second RNA as it emerges from the elongation complex. Polymerase is released as the highly processive exonuclease overtakes it. It is proposed that an emerging view will express a merge of these two models. Factor-independent RNA polymerase III can terminate transcription efficiently without the involvement of additional factors. The Pol III termination signal consists of a stretch of thymines (on the nontemplate strand) located within 40bp downstream from the 3' end of mature RNAs. The poly-T termination signal pauses Pol III Eukaryotic transcriptional control The regulation of gene expression in eukaryotes is achieved through the interaction of several levels of control that acts both locally to turn on or off individual genes in response to a specific cellular need and globally to maintain a chromatin-wide gene expression pattern that shapes cell identity. Because eukaryotic genome is wrapped around histones to form nucleosomes and higher-order chromatin structures, the substrates for transcriptional machinery are in general partially concealed. Without regulatory proteins, many genes are expressed at low level or not expressed at all. Transcription requires displacement of the positioned nucleosomes to enable the transcriptional machinery to gain access of the DNA. All steps in the transcription are subject to some degree of regulation. Transcription initiation in particular is the primary level at which gene expression is regulated. Targeting the rate-limiting initial step is the most efficient in terms of energy costs for the cell. Transcription initiation is regulated by cis-acting elements (enhancers, silencers, isolators) within the regulatory regions of the DNA, and sequence-specific trans-acting factors that act as activators or repressors. Gene transcription can also be regulated post-initiation by targeting the movement of the elongating polymerase. Global control and epigenetic regulation The eukaryotic genome is organized into a compact chromatin structure that allows only regulated access to DNA. The chromatin structure can be globally "open" and more transcriptionally permissive, or globally "condensed" and transcriptionally inactive. The former (euchromatin) is lightly packed and rich in genes under active transcription. The latter (heterochromatin) includes gene-poor regions such as telomeres and centromeres but also regions with normal gene density but transcriptionally silenced. Transcription can be silenced by histone modification (deacetylation and methylation), RNA interference, and/or DNA methylation. The gene expression patterns that define cell identity are