This article will review our current understanding of transcription elongation and termination in E. coli. We discuss why transcription elongation complexes pause at certain template sites and how auxiliary host and phage transcription factors affect elongation and termination. The connection between translation and transcription elongation is described. Finally we present an overview indicating where progress has been made and where it has not.
Keywords: Nus factors; transcription antitermination; transcription elongation; transcription pausing; transcription termination; transcription-translation coupling.