Abstract
ONE protein can activate some genes and repress others in the same cell1. The Drosophila protein Dorsal2 (which, like the human protein NF-κB3, is a member of the Rel family of transcriptional activators) activates the twist gene and represses the zen gene in the ventral region of early embryos4,5. Here we describe a Drosophila HMG1 protein, called DSP1 (dorsal switch protein), that converts Dorsal and NF-κB from transcriptional activators to repressers. This effect requires a sequence termed a negative regulatory ele-ment (NRE), found adjacent to Dorsal-binding sites in the zen promoter and adjacent to the NF-κB-binding site in the human interferon-β (IFN-β) enhancer6–8. Previous studies have shown that another type of HMG protein, HMG I(Y), can stimulate NF-κB activity9. Thus, the HMG-like proteins DSP1 and HMG I(Y) can determine whether a specific regulator functions as an activator or a repressor of transcription.
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Lehming, N., Thanos, D., Brickman, J. et al. An HMG-like protein that can switch a transcriptional activator to a repressor. Nature 371, 175–179 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1038/371175a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/371175a0
