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Transcription of most protein-coding genes requires the passage of RNA polymerase II through chromatin. Chromatin with its fundamental unit, the nucleosome, represents a barrier to transcription. How RNA polymerase II and associated factors traverse through nucleosomes and how chromatin architecture is maintained have remained largely enigmatic. Only recently, cryo-EM structures have visualized the transcription process through chromatin. These structures have elucidated how transcription initiation and transcription elongation influence and are influenced by a chromatinized DNA substrate. This review provides a summary of our current structural understanding of transcription through chromatin, highlighting common mechanisms during nucleosomal traversal and novel regulatory mechanisms that have emerged in the last five years., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The first step of eukaryotic gene expression is the assembly of RNA polymerase II and general transcription factors on promoter DNA. This highly regulated process involves ∼80 different proteins that together form the preinitiation complex (PIC). Decades of work have gone into understanding PIC assembly using biochemical and structural approaches. These efforts have yielded significant but partial descriptions of PIC assembly. Over the past few years, cryo-electron microscopy has provided the first high-resolution structures of the near-complete mammalian PIC assembly. These structures have revealed that PIC assembly is a highly dynamic process. This review will summarize recent structural findings and discuss their implications for understanding cell type-specific gene expression., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest statement Nothing declared., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)