[Eucaryotic regulation of transcription--a role of core promoter]

Each gene possesses its individual program of expression. A large part of information defining this program is stored in the core promoter sequence. In this review the diversity of core promoter regulatory elements and their organization into functional units is described. The basic transcription factors and nuclear receptors which cooperate with the core promoter elements are reviewed. The effect of post-translational modification of regulatory proteins on the assembly and function of polymerase initiation complexes is presented. Selected experimental approaches applied for finding functional interactions between regulatory elements and their protein partners are discussed.