Negative regulation of cytokine gene transcription

Cytokines are a class of soluble proteins that mediate signals throughout the immune system as well as between immune effector cells and other cell populations. This class of proteins includes interleukins, interferons, and chemokines. The expression of cytokines is tightly controlled in the producing cells, and one of the most important regulatory steps in this control is gene transcription. The transcription of most cytokine genes is silent until a producing cell is activated by extracellular stimuli. It is very common that transcription of these genes initiates immediately upon activation and shuts down quickly even in the continuous presence of the stimulating agent. Work performed over the past decade has revealed much about the molecular mechanism responsible for transcriptional regulation of these genes. Positive and negative transcription factors function in a concerted manner to regulate transcription of a specific cytokine at the promoter or intron region. We focus on recent progress in the field of transcriptional regulation of cytokine genes with an emphasis on the negative regulation of cytokine gene transcription.