Zinc cluster regions

The zinc cluster regions ofGAL4 bind at the two ends of the enhancer element... 

DNA-binding site specificity among the C -zinc cluster family of transcription factors is achieved by the linker regions... 

Subsequently Stephen Harrison s group determined the x-ray structure of a PPRl-DNA complex and showed that the zinc cluster domain of PPRl and its mode of binding to DNA was very similar to that of GAL4, and that PPRl also dimerized through a coiled-coil region. However, the linker region... 

Dimerization of the Ce-zinc cluster transcription factors involves an a-helical coiled coil in the dimerization region. Coiled coils, often called leucine zippers, are also found in a large group of transcription factors that do not contain zinc. The leucine zipper is made up of two a helices in a coiled coil with every seventh residue leucine or some other large hydrophobic residue, such as isoleucine or valine. Leucine zipper transcription factors (b/zip) include factors characterized by heterodimerization, for example Fos and Jun. The a-helical DNA-binding motifs of the heterodimers recognize quite different base sequences and are continous with the a helices of the zipper. 

Ferredoxins from thermoacidophilic archaea such as Thermoplasma acidophi-lum and Sulfolobus sp. contain, in addition to one 3Fe-4S (cluster I) and one 4Fe-4S (cluster II) cluster, one zinc centre tetrahedrally co-ordinated to three histidines in the N-terminal region and to one aspartate in the ferredoxin core domain. These Fds contain an unusually long N-terminal extension region of unknown function, which was not detected in other bacterial type Fds. Upon oxidative degradation of Fd from Sulfolobus sp. strain 7 (Fopt = 80 cluster II is selectively converted into a cubane 3Fe-4S,... 

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