indirectly repress transcription by recruiting histone modifiers (deacetylases and methylases) or nucleosome remodeling enzymes that affect the accessibility of the DNA. Repressing histone and DNA modifications are also the basis of transcriptional silencing that can spread along the chromatin and switch off multiple genes. Elongation and termination control The elongation phase starts once assembly of the elongation complex has been completed, and progresses until a termination sequence is encountered. The post-initiation movement of RNA polymerase is the target of another class of important regulatory mechanisms. For example, the transcriptional activator Tat affects elongation rather than initiation during its regulation of HIV transcription. In fact, many eukaryotic genes are regulated by releasing a block to transcription elongation called promoter-proximal pausing. Pausing can influence chromatin structure at promoters to facilitate gene activity and lead to rapid or synchronous transcriptional responses when cells are exposed to an activation signal. Pausing is associated with the binding of two negative elongation factors, DSIF (SPT4/SPT5) and NELF, to the elongation complex. Other factors can also influence the stability and duration of the paused polymerase. Pause release is triggered by the recruitment of the P-TEFb kinase. Transcription termination has also emerged as an important area of transcriptional regulation. Termination is coupled with the efficient recycling of polymerase. The factors associated with transcription termination can also mediate gene looping and thereby determine the efficiency of re-initiation. Transcription-coupled DNA repair When transcription is arrested by the presence of a lesion in the transcribed strand of a gene, DNA repair proteins are recruited to the stalled RNA polymerase to initiate a process called transcription-coupled repair. Central to this process is the general transcription factor TFIIH that has ATPase activity. TFIIH causes a conformational change in the polymerase, to expose the transcription bubble trapped inside, in order for the DNA repair enzymes to gain access to the lesion. Thus, RNA polymerase serves as damage-sensing protein in the cell to target repair enzymes to genes that are being actively transcribed. Comparisons between prokaryotic and eukaryotic transcription Eukaryotic transcription is more complex than prokaryotic transcription. For instance, in eukaryotes the genetic material (DNA), and therefore transcription, is primarily localized to the nucleus, where it is separated from the cytoplasm (in which translation occurs) by the nuclear membrane. This allows for the temporal regulation of gene expression through the sequestration of the RNA in the nucleus, and allows for selective transport of mature RNAs