Negative elongation factor accelerates the rate at which heat shock genes are shut off by facilitating dissociation of heat shock factor.

Promoter-proximal pausing of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) occurs on thousands of genes in animal cells. This pausing often correlates with the rapid induction of genes, but direct tests of the relationship between pausing and induction rates are lacking. hsp70 and hsp26 in Drosophila are rapidly induced by heat shock. Contrary to current expectations, depletion of negative elongation factor (NELF), a key factor in setting up paused Pol II, reduced pausing but did not interfere with rapid induction. Instead, depletion of NELF delayed the time taken for these genes to shut off during recovery from heat shock. NELF depletion also delayed the dissociation of HSF from hsp70 and hsp26, and a similar delay was observed when cells were depleted of the histone acetyltransferase CBP. CBP has been reported to associate with Pol II, and acetylation of HSF by CBP has been implicated in inhibiting the DNA-binding activity of HSF. We propose that NELF-mediated pausing allows Pol II to direct CBP-mediated acetylation of HSF, thus causing HSF to dissociate from the gene. Activators are typically viewed as controlling Pol II. Our results reveal a possible reciprocal relationship in which paused Pol II influences the activator.