Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 15, 2026

Mapping the Structure-Function Relationships of Disordered Oncogenic Transcription Factors Using Transcriptomic Analysis
Published on: June 27, 2020
The nuclear protein ALY binds to and modulates the activity of transcription factor E2F2
Nerea Osinalde1, Miguel Olea, Jone Mitxelena
1Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, 48940 Leioa, Spain.
Abstract:
E2F transcription factors control the expression of genes involved in a variety of essential cellular processes and consequently their activity needs to be tightly regulated. Protein-protein interactions are thought to be key modulators of E2F activity. To gain insight into the mechanisms that regulate the activity of E2F2, we searched for novel proteins that associate with this transcription factor. We show that the nuclear protein ALY (THO complex 4), originally described as a transcriptional co-activator, associates with DNA-bound E2F2 and represses its transcriptional activity. The capacity of ALY to modulate gene expression was analyzed with expression microarrays by characterizing the transcriptome of E2F2 expressing HEK293T cells in which ALY was either overexpressed or silenced. We show that ALY influences the expression of more than 400 genes, including 98 genes bearing consensus E2F motifs. Thus, ALY emerges as a novel E2F2-interacting protein and a relevant modulator of E2F-responsive gene expression.
Related Concept Videos
Eukaryotic Transcription Inhibitors
Eukaryotic transcription inhibitors usually contain two distinct domains, a DNA...
RNA Polymerase II Accessory Proteins
Regulation of Nuclear Protein Sorting
Eukaryotic Transcription Activators
The binding domains are capable of recognizing and interacting with regulatory sequences on the DNA. These domains are...
Master Transcription Regulators
Co-activators and Co-repressors

