STATS: TRANSCRIPTIONAL CONTROL AND BIOLOGICAL IMPACT Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 2002 Vol 3 No 9 Р 651-662 | |
Extracellular proteins bound to cell-surface receptors can change nuclear gene expression patterns in minutes, with far-reaching consequences for development, cell growth and homeostasis. The signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) proteins are among the most well studied of the latent cytoplasmic signal-dependent transcription-factor pathways. In addition to several roles in normal cell decisions, dysregulation of STAT function contributes to human disease,making the study of these proteins an important topic of current research.
(Рис.1.) | Canonical JAK–STAT pathway. (Рис.2.) | Janus kinase domain structure. (Рис.3.) | STAT domain structure and protein binding sites. (Рис.4.) | The negative regulators of STAT proteins. (Табл.1) | Role of Janus kinases as revealed by gene-targeting in mice (Табл.2) |Role of SOCS proteins as shown by mouse genetics (Табл.3) Role of STAT proteins as revealed by gene-targeting in mice (Табл.4) Tissue-specific roles of Stat3 as revealed by conditional gene targeting in mice Boxes(Box 1.) | Variations in mechanisms of STAT activation Box 2 | Transcriptional stimulation without phosphorylation The first indication that signal transducers and activators of transcription (STAT) proteins might have a role in gene expression as unphosphorylated molecules came from experiments using genetically selected human cancer cells in culture that lacked STAT1 (U3A cells). Such cells did not undergo apoptosis upon challenge until STAT1 expression was restored. The U3A cells lacked a full component of More recently, gene-array experiments using U3A cells (lacking STAT1) and cells with restored STAT1 were compared without IFN-γ stimulation. A set of genes was found in which the genes were not dependent on IFN and whose mRNAs were present when STAT1 was added back to the U3A cells. One of these genes, termed low molecular weight polypeptide 2 (LMP-2), was studied in detail. STAT1 was constitutively bound to the promoter of this gene in cells not stimulated by IFN and in which no tyrosine phosphorylation of STAT1 could be found. The STAT1 was associated with the promoter, presumably because of its association with interferon regulatory factor-1 (IRF1 — a known binding partner of STAT1) that was also present at the LMP-2 promoter, and can bind DNA on its own. So, it seems clear that unphosphorylated STAT proteins can have a role in transcription, even though it is evident that the main transcriptional stimulation by STATs follows tyrosine phosphorylation, dimerization and nuclear accumulation.
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