Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Dorman, Charles J
• Schumacher, Maria A
• Bush, Matthew J
• Brennan, Richard G
• Buttner, Mark J

Titel

When is a transcription factor a NAP?

Ist Teil von

• Current opinion in microbiology, 2020-06, Vol.55, p.26-33

Ort / Verlag

England: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• [Display omitted] •Addresses the nature of the distinction between bacterial transcription factors and nucleoid-associated proteins.•Proteins lie along a spectrum of influence extending from highly specific to very pervasive effects on gene expression.•Uses the BldC protein from Streptomyces as an example.•BldC is compared with Xis, the excisionase DNA-binding-and-architectural protein that is expressed by bacteriophage lambda. Proteins that regulate transcription often also play an architectural role in the genome. Thus, it has been difficult to define with precision the distinctions between transcription factors and nucleoid-associated proteins (NAPs). Anachronistic descriptions of NAPs as 'histone-like' implied an organizational function in a bacterial chromatin-like complex. Definitions based on protein abundance, regulatory mechanisms, target gene number, or the features of their DNA-binding sites are insufficient as marks of distinction, and trying to distinguish transcription factors and NAPs based on their ranking within regulatory hierarchies or positions in gene-control networks is also unsatisfactory. The terms 'transcription factor' and 'NAP' are ad hoc operational definitions with each protein lying along a spectrum of structural and functional features extending from highly specific actors with few gene targets to those with a pervasive influence on the transcriptome. The Streptomyces BldC protein is used to illustrate these issues.