preview

A Family Of Transcription Factors

Decent Essays
Open Document

Introduction
1. The Grainyhead (Grh) gene family
Grainyhead (Grh) genes are conserved in metazoans. They encode a family of transcription factors with a unique, unusually large, DNA-binding and dimerization domain, and an isoleucine-rich activation domain(Attardi and Tjian, 1993; Gustavsson et al., 2008; Moussian and Uv, 2005; Ting et al., 2003b; Uv et al., 1994; Venkatesan et al., 2003; Wilanowski et al., 2002). Grh factors were first identified in Drosophila (Bray et al., 1989; Bray and Kafatos, 1991; Dynlacht et al., 1989; Johnson et al., 1989) and since then, they were also found in animals as diverse as nematodes and humans. Grh proteins have not yet been detected in unicellular organisms. Phylogenetic analysis subdivides this gene family into two main classes, the Grh-like sub-family and the CP2 sub-family, depending whether the family members are more related to the Drosophila grh, or to another Drosophila gene, CP2 (Ting et al., 2003b; Venkatesan et al., 2003; Wilanowski et al., 2002). The fly and worm genomes each contain a single grh gene. Mammals, both mice and humans, have evolved three Grh homologues: Grh-like-1 (Grhl-1, or Mammalian Grainyhead (MGR)/TFCP2L2), Grhl-2 (Brother-of-MGR (BOM)/TFCP2L3) and Grhl-3 (Sister-of-MGR (SOM)/ TFCP2L4). This group of genes encodes proteins with highly homologous DNA-binding and dimerization domains. They all show restricted expression pattern during embryogenesis and play important roles in organogenesis and epidermal

Get Access
Related
Get Access