Cory Abate (Rutgers University, Piscataway, N.J.): "The fos and jun oncogenes were isolated independently as cellular transforming genes. However, their protein products function cooperatively as components of a dimeric transcription factor complex. A great deal is known about the dimerization and DNA- binding properties of Fos and Jun. This provided a unique opportunity to dissect the mechanisms responsible for the transcriptional activity of a heterodimeric complex composed of two oncogene products. In this paper, we defined several regions in Fos and Jun that affected transcription positively (activator regions) or negatively (repressor regions) and showed that the transcriptional activity of the heterodimer resulted from the cumulative action of these multiple activator and repressor domains.
"This report is among the first to examine interactions among transcriptional regulatory domains present in both partners of a heterodimer and provides a general model for the function of multicomponent transcription complexes. Many transcription factors, including Fos ...
