The myocardin-related transcription factor, MASTR, cooperates with MyoD to activate skeletal muscle gene expression.

ABSTRACT: The myocardin family proteins (myocardin, MRTF-A, and MRTF-B) are serum response factor (SRF) cofactors and potent transcription activators. Gene-ablation studies have indicated important developmental functions for myocardin family proteins primarily in regulation of cardiac and smooth muscle development. Using Xenopus genome and cDNA databases, we identified a myocardin-related transcription factor expressed specifically in the skeletal muscle lineage. Synteny and sequence alignments indicate that this gene is the frog orthologue of mouse MASTR [Creemers EE, Sutherland LB, Oh J, Barbosa AC, Olson EN (2006) Coactivation of MEF2 by the SAP domain proteins myocardin and MASTR. Mol Cell 23:83-96]. Inhibition of MASTR function in the Xenopus embryo by using dominant-negative constructions or

SUBMITTER: Meadows SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2234181 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature