Question

To study the functioning of intrinsic terminator you increase the number of G-C base pairs in the stem and decrease the U bases from the tail region. What would be its effect on termination?

(a) No visible effect

(b) Efficiency will decrease

(c) Efficiency will increase

(d) The RNA polymerase will stall at the terminator

This question was addressed to me in unit test.

This question is from Transcription in Prokaryotes : Termination topic in chapter Gene Expression : Transcription Prokaryotes of Cytogenetics

Answer 1

The correct answer is (a) No visible effect

To explain: The increase in number of G-C base pairs in the stem region stabilizes the stem, and decreasing in number of U in the tail destabilizes it. These two have a compensating effect on terminator efficiency.