A team of physicists working at the intersection of theory and experiment are shedding new light on the 'teamwork' of molecular motors -- called RNA polymerases (RNAPs) -- that mediate DNA transcription. The researchers' work revealed for the first time two essential elements in modeling transcription under torsion: first, transcription factors that are well known to affect the rate at which RNAP initiate transcription can also control the propagation of DNA supercoils, and second, the number of RNAPs present affects the torsional stress experienced by individual RNAPs.