- Koide, Tie;
- Reiss, David J;
- Bare, J Christopher;
- Pang, Wyming Lee;
- Facciotti, Marc T;
- Schmid, Amy K;
- Pan, Min;
- Marzolf, Bruz;
- Van, Phu T;
- Lo, Fang-Yin;
- Pratap, Abhishek;
- Deutsch, Eric W;
- Peterson, Amelia;
- Martin, Dan;
- Baliga, Nitin S
Despite the knowledge of complex prokaryotic-transcription mechanisms, generalized rules, such as the simplified organization of genes into operons with well-defined promoters and terminators, have had a significant role in systems analysis of regulatory logic in both bacteria and archaea. Here, we have investigated the prevalence of alternate regulatory mechanisms through genome-wide characterization of transcript structures of approximately 64% of all genes, including putative non-coding RNAs in Halobacterium salinarum NRC-1. Our integrative analysis of transcriptome dynamics and protein-DNA interaction data sets showed widespread environment-dependent modulation of operon architectures, transcription initiation and termination inside coding sequences, and extensive overlap in 3' ends of transcripts for many convergently transcribed genes. A significant fraction of these alternate transcriptional events correlate to binding locations of 11 transcription factors and regulators (TFs) inside operons and annotated genes-events usually considered spurious or non-functional. Using experimental validation, we illustrate the prevalence of overlapping genomic signals in archaeal transcription, casting doubt on the general perception of rigid boundaries between coding sequences and regulatory elements.