Regulation of Transcription Factor Localization

-Fine Tuning of Gene Expression

Neelima Boora

In eukaryotic cells the evolution of the nuclear envelop to define cytoplasmic and nuclear compartments led to a physical separation of transcription and translation. Nuclear proteins such as structural polypeptides or regulatory factors, which are implicit in this compartmentalisation and are synthesised in cytoplasm , have to be imported into the nucleus in order to exert to their activity. Regulating the access of a transcriptional regulator to nuclear compartment has been proved over the past years to represent a common way to switch transcription on and off. The different ways reported so far to regulate nuclear import and export of the transcriptional regulators will be discussed.