Imaging transcriptional dynamics

Recent advances in imaging techniques have enabled visualizations of nascent transcripts or individual protein molecules at high spatiotemporal resolution, revealing the complex nature of transcriptional regulation. Here, we highlight recent studies that have provided comprehensive insights to transcriptional dynamics using such quantitative imaging techniques. Specifically, they demonstrated that transcriptional activity is stochastic, and such transcriptional bursting is modulated by multiple components like chromatin environments, concentration of transcription factors, and enhancer-promoter interactions. Moreover, recent studies suggested that regulation of transcriptional activity is more complex than previously thought, by showing that transcription factors and RNA polymerases also move within the cell with distinct kinetics and sometimes form dynamic clusters to mediate transcriptional initiation.