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Putting its fingers on stressful situations: the heavy metal-regulatory transcription factor MTF-1.
Journal article

Putting its fingers on stressful situations: the heavy metal-regulatory transcription factor MTF-1.

  • 2001-12-18
Published in:
  • BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology. - 2001
Animals
DNA-Binding Proteins
Humans
Metals, Heavy
Mice
Mice, Knockout
Promoter Regions, Genetic
Trans-Activators
Transcription Factors
English It has been suggested that metallothioneins, discovered about 45 years ago, play a central role in heavy metal metabolism and detoxification, and in the management of various forms of stress. The metal-regulatory transcription factor-1 (MTF-1) was shown to be essential for basal and heavy metal-induced transcription of the stress-responsive metallothionein-I and metallothionein-II. Recently it has become obvious that MTF-1 has further roles in the transcriptional regulation of genes induced by various stressors and might even contribute to some aspects of malignant cell growth. Furthermore, MTF-1 is an essential gene, as mice null-mutant for MTF-1 die in utero due to liver degeneration. We describe here the state of knowledge on the complex activation of MTF-1, and propose a model with MTF-1 as an interconnected cellular stress-sensor protein involved in heavy metal metabolism, hepatocyte differentiation and detoxification of toxic agents.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/85001
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