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In molecular biology and genetics, transcriptional regulation is the means by which a cell regulates the conversion of DNA to RNA (transcription), thereby orchestrating gene activity. A single gene can be regulated in a range of ways, from altering the number of copies of RNA that are transcribed, to the temporal control of when the gene is transcribed. This control allows the cell or organism to respond to a variety of intra- and extracellular signals and thus mount a response. Some examples of this include producing the mRNA that encode enzymes to adapt to a change in a food source, producing the gene products involved in cell cycle specific activities, and producing the gene products responsible for cellular differentiation in higher eukaryotes. The regulation of transcription is a vital process in all living organisms. It is orchestrated by transcription factors and other proteins working in concert to finely tune the amount of RNA being produced through a variety of mechanisms. Prokaryotic organisms and eukaryotic organisms have very different strategies of accomplishing control over transcription, but some important features remain conserved between the two. Most importantly is the idea of combinatorial control, which is that any given gene is likely controlled by a specific combination of factors to control transcription. In a hypothetical example, the factors A and B might regulate a distinct set of genes from the combination of factors A and C. This combinatorial nature extends to complexes of far more than two proteins, and allows a very small subset (less than 10%) of the genome to control the transcriptional program of the entire cell. == Transcription regulation in prokaryotes == Much of the early understanding of transcription came from prokaryotic organisms, although the extent and complexity of transcriptional regulation is greater in eukaryotes. Prokaryotic transcription is governed by three main sequence elements: * Promoters are elements of DNA that may bind RNA polymerase and other proteins for the successful initiation of transcription directly upstream of the gene. * Operators recognize repressor proteins that bind to a stretch of DNA and inhibit the transcription of the gene. * Positive control elements that bind to DNA and incite higher levels of transcription While these means of transcriptional regulation also exist in eukaryotes, the transcriptional landscape is significantly more complicated both by the number of proteins involved as well as by the presence of introns and the packaging of DNA into histones. The transcription of a basic prokaryotic gene is dependent on the strength of its promoter and the presence of activators or repressors. In the absence of other regulatory elements, a promoter’s sequence-based affinity for RNA polymerases varies, which results in the production of different amounts of transcript. The variable affinity of RNA polymerase for different promoter sequences is related to regions of consensus sequence upstream of the transcription start site. The more nucleotides of a promoter that agree with the consensus sequence, the stronger the affinity of the promoter for RNA Polymerase likely is. In the absence of other regulatory elements, the default state of a prokaryotic transcript is to be in the “on” configuration, resulting in the production of some amount of transcript. This means that transcriptional regulation in the form of protein repressors and positive control elements can either increase or decrease transcription. Repressors often physically occupy the promoter location, occluding RNA polymerase from binding. Alternatively a repressor and polymerase may bind to the DNA at the same time with a physical interaction between the repressor preventing the opening of the DNA for access to the minus strand for transcription. This strategy of control is distinct from eukaryotic transcription, whose basal state is to be off and where co-factors required for transcription initiation are highly gene dependent.〔Payankaulam, S., Arnosti, D. Transcriptional repression: conserved and evolved features. Current Biology (2010).〕 Sigma factors are specialized bacterial proteins that bind to RNA polymerases and orchestrate transcription initiation. Sigma factors act as mediators of sequence-specific transcription, such that a single sigma factor can be used for transcription of all housekeeping genes or a suite of genes the cell wishes to express in response to some external stimuli such as stress.〔Gruber, T., Gross, C. Multiple sigma subunits and the partitioning of bacterial transcription space. Annu Rev Microbiol (2003).〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「transcriptional regulation」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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