Transcription factors: a new family gathers at the cAMP response site

作者：Edward Benjamin Ziff · 发表于：Trends in Genetics · 年份：1990 · DOI：10.1016/0168-9525(90)90081-g · 被引用次数：242 · 研究领域：Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics、RNA Research and Splicing、Animal Genetics and Reproduction

lloMMENT Transcription factors: a new family gathers at the cAMP response site Promoters for RNA polymerase II are subject to a bewildering array of controls. Nonetheless, success in tracking transcription control path­ways has advanced dramatically through the identification of tran­scription factors that associate with specific promoter elements and mediate the transcriptional re­·sponse to cellular regulatory sig­nals. One advance came with the discovery that the serum-inducible transcription factors Fos and Jun associate with one another to form a heterodimeric complex that is member of the AP-1 transcription factor family and binds to the con­sensus AP-1-binding site sequence 5'-GTGAGT(A/C)A-3' (the TPA re­sponse element or TRE; reviewed in Ref. 1). Other progress came from studies of the cAMP response el­ement (CRE) 5'-GTGACGTA/CA/G-3' (Ref. 2) and the closely related 'activation transcription factor' site (ATF site)3. These elements differ from the TRE by the insertion of a central C residue. A new report from the lab of Michael Green at Harvard4 suggests that the CRE/ ATF site binds a family of factors with much in common with the Fos-Jun family. These families may serve as paradigms for other transcription factor families and may provide novel mechanisms of gene control. Control of transcription factor activity through dimerization The Fos and Jun families pro­vide the best characterized ex­ample of transcription factors that use dimerization to control func­tion. A ...