Bacterial Transcription Factors in Gene Expression Regulation / 中国生物化学与分子生物学报

ABSTRACT

Transcription factors (TFs) are key proteins that regulate gene expression by guiding RNA polymerases to bind to specific DNA sequences in cells, thus enabling organisms to respond to environmental changes rapidly and achieving better survival adaptability. Most bacterial transcription factors are composed of two parts: a DNA-binding domain and a regulatory domain, but some transcription factors have only one DNA-binding domain. According to the functional profile, they can be classified as activating transcription factors and repressive transcription factors. The important function of bacterial transcription factors is to sense changes in environmental conditions and to adjust the expression of related genes accordingly, at same time they are also affected by other signaling molecules. They often form a complex regulatory network with each other and jointly manage the expression of genes to cope with the environmental signals. Due to the importance of bacterial transcription factors in gene regulation, it has become a hot spot in molecular biology research. In this review, we summarize the study of bacterial transcription factors in recent years, focusing on their structures and function mechanisms and roles in stress response, in order to provide ideas for a systematic understanding of the topic.