The functional impact of RNA Polymerase II pausing across multiple mamamlian cell types

We analyzed the breadth and functional relationships of RNA Polymerase II pausing across many human and mouse cell types to understand what roles RNA Polymerase II pausing plays in gene regulation. We identified a novel association of H2A.Z at the TSS of increasingly paused genes. We knocked down H2A.Z to test whether H2A.Z positively or negatively affects RNA Polymerase II pausing to find that pausing globally increased upon knockdown. We tested the effect of H2A.Z knockdown on RNA Polymerase II pausing by setting up a case vs. control experiment in which MCF7 breast cancer cells were treated with a siRNA against H2A.Z. We tested for changes in RNA Polymerase II pausing as a result.