Role of Disordered Protein Interactions in Gene Expression
Published:30 Nov.2021 Source:Baylor College of Medicine
A team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and the Czech Academy of Sciences has uncovered a new piece of the puzzle of how gene expression is orchestrated. Published in the journal Science, the findings reveal a novel mechanism that coordinates the assembly of components inside cells that control gene expression. The mechanism not only is essential for normal cell function, but also has been implicated in cancer, neurodegeneration and HIV infection, and could suggest new ways to treat these conditions.
"Most previous studies have focused on particular cellular components that turn genes completely on or off," said co-corresponding author Dr. H. Courtney Hodges, assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology and in the Center for Precision Environmental Health at Baylor. "Our work reveals a new perspective -- that the proteins that regulate the rate of gene expression also can work collectively to finely tune expression levels in many different settings. We identified a mechanism that brings these proteins together and plays widespread roles in health and disease."