Regulation of heat shock transcription factors and their roles in physiology and disease.

ABSTRACT: The heat shock transcription factors (HSFs) were discovered over 30 years ago as direct transcriptional activators of genes regulated by thermal stress, encoding heat shock proteins. The accepted paradigm posited that HSFs exclusively activate the expression of protein chaperones in response to conditions that cause protein misfolding by recognizing a simple promoter binding site referred to as a heat shock element. However, we now realize that the mammalian family of HSFs comprises proteins that independently or in concert drive combinatorial gene regulation events that activate or repress transcription in different contexts. Advances in our understanding of HSF structure, post-translational modifications and the breadth of HSF-regulated target genes have revealed exciting new mechanisms

SUBMITTER: Gomez-Pastor R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5794010 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature