home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- ************************
- * IRF family signature *
- ************************
-
- Viral infections induce the expression of type I interferons (IFN-alpha and
- IFN-beta) genes. The induction is due to the transcriptional activation of the
- IFN genes. Interferon regulatory factor I (IRF-1) is one of the transcription
- factors responsible for that activation. IRF-1 binds to an upstream regulatory
- cis element, known as the interferon consensus sequence (ICS), which is found
- in the promoters of type I IFN and IFN-inducible MHC class I genes. Interferon
- regulatory factor 2 (IRF-2) is a protein that also interacts with the ICS, but
- that does not function as an activator; rather, it suppresses the function of
- IRF-1 under certain circumstances [1].
-
- The IRF proteins share a highly conserved N-terminal domain of 114 amino acid
- residues which is probably involved in DNA-binding and which is also present
- in the following proteins:
-
- - Interferon consensus sequence binding protein (ICSBP) [2], a transcription
- factor expressed predominantly in lymphoid tissues and induced by IFN-gamma
- that also binds to the ICS.
- - Transcriptional regulator ISGF3 gamma subunit [3]. ISGF3 is responsible for
- the initial stimulation of interferon-alpha-responsive genes. It recognizes
- and binds to the interferon-stimulated response element (ISRE) within the
- regulatory sequences of target genes.
-
- These proteins share a highly conserved N-terminal domain of 114 amino acid
- residues which is probably involved in DNA-binding. As a signature for this
- family of proteins we selected a conserved region in position 74 to 96 of the
- domain.
-
- -Consensus pattern: P-x(2)-W-K-[TA]-x(2)-R-C-A-[LIVM]-N-x(6)-E-V-x-[DE]
- -Sequences known to belong to this class detected by the pattern: ALL.
- -Other sequence(s) detected in SWISS-PROT: NONE.
- -Last update: October 1993 / Pattern and text revised.
-
- [ 1] Taniguchi T.
- J. Interferon Res. 9:633-640(1989).
- [ 2] Driggers P.H., Ennist D.L., Gleason S.L., Mak W.-H., Marks M.S.,
- Levi B.-Z., Flanagan J.R., Appella E., Ozato K.
- Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 87:3743-3747(1990).
- [ 3] Veals S.A., Schindler C., Leonard D., Fu X.-Y., Aebersold R.,
- Darnell J.E. Jr., Levy D.E.
- Mol. Cell. Biol. 12:3315-3324(1992).
-