Article Abstract:
Author's Abstract: COPYRIGHT 1999, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Epigenetic regulation of transcription can lead to a stable differential expression of identical genetic information in the same cell or cell population. There is increasing evidence that higher order chromatin structures, involving specific multiprotein complexes, constitute one device to establish and maintain epigenetic marks. In addition, defined chromosomal elements conferring epigenetic inheritance of transcriptional expression states have recently been identified. During the period where the difference in expression of identical genes is established, these sequences appear to be used as switch elements by both negataive and positive regulators. Once the epigenetic mark is "set", the elements maintain either the silenced or the activated expression state over many cell generations. Here we review recent data obtained from analyzing epigenetic gene regulation in different organisms and show that similarities in the underlying mechanisms appear to exist.
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Article Abstract:
Rel proteins are pre-synthesized, inactive proteins who have at least 300 similar amino acid sequences in their amino terminals. They are found in the fruitfly Drosophila, the mammalian kappa gene transcription factor that binds to the kappa light chains of B lymphocytes, the turkey oncogenes and the proto-oncogene of many species. Rel proteins are essential in nuclear localization, nucleic acid binding and protein interactions subcellularly. These properties are mediated by the presence of a common nuclear targeting sequence and an arginine-arginine-X-serine phosphorylation site.
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A study is presented which explored one possible underlying mechanism called permutation-by-duplication, which produces special forms of motif rearrangements called circular permutations. An important proof of the plausibility of the permutation-by-duplication mechanism, proposed to generate circular permutations in DNA-MTases is presented.
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