Abstract:Divergent transcription is frequently found in mammalian genomes， producing pairs of transcripts from the two strands of DNA. For example， the transcription of many coding genes was found to be accompanied by transcription of a non-coding gene on the opposite direction. Divergent transcription is tightly regulated via various machanisms， including transcription termination， gene loop， chromatin modification， and nucleosome remodeling. The transcripts from divergent transcription can affect the transcription of nearby genes， or other genes by generating enhancer RNAs. In addition， divergent transcription may facilitate the origin of new genes in evolution. Here we provide a review on the recent research in the identifications， regulation machineries， and functions of divergent transcription， together with a brief discussion on the future directions of the field.