Do Bacteria Have the Transcription Factors? The Formation and Development of the Concept of “Transcription Factor” YANG Ke-Gong ^* Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Peking Union Medical College, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing 100005, China 摘要 围绕“细菌是否有转录因子(transcription factors, TFs)”这个问题,近20多年来在国内外学术界存在明显分歧。传统观点认为,细菌没有TFs,调节细菌基因转录起始的是转录激活蛋白和阻遏蛋白,TFs仅仅结合于真核基因启动子。这种观点的典型代表是某些国际学术权威主编的生物化学和分子生物学类主流原版教材。然而,新观点认为,细菌的结合DNA的转录激活蛋白和阻遏蛋白就是TFs,其含量和重要性不亚于真核。虽然新观点在国际学术期刊发表的学术论文中早已司空见惯,但迄今国内外许多学者仍然心存疑虑。“转录因子”这一概念像许多分子生物学术语一样,伴随学科发展不断更新,从狭义到广义。初期人们曾以为TFs仅仅是真核基因转录起始所必需的,细菌不需要TFs,当时将细菌排除在其适用范围以外可以理解。40年来丰富的科研成果已经证明,大量的转录激活蛋白和阻遏蛋白结合于启动子以外的顺式调控元件,其中既包括真核生物的增强子、沉默子和绝缘子,也有细菌的多种正、负调控元件,这些转录调节蛋白符合转录因子的所有基本特征,是名副其实的“转录因子”。所以,新观点具有科学性和合理性,应该为学术界广泛接受和采用。将来“转录因子”的概念是否会进一步扩大,纳入HAT等染色质修饰蛋白和ncRNAs,甚至拓展到转录的“延伸因子”和“终止因子”,我们对此应该秉持开放态度。 Abstract ：Over the past 20 years, there have been substantial divergences in academia around the world on the issue of whether bacteria have transcription factors (TFs). The traditional view is that bacteria do not have TFs, and their transcriptional activators and/or repressors regulate the transcription initiation, and TFs only bind to eukaryotic promoters. The typical representative of the traditional view is the mainstream international textbooks of Biochemistry and Molecular biology edited by some academic authorities. However, the new idea is that DNA binding transcriptional activators and repressors in bacteria are TFs, and the content and importance of which are no less than those of eukaryotes. Although the new idea has long been common in academic papers published in international academic journals, many scholars still have doubts. The concept of "transcription factor", like many terms of molecular biology, is constantly updated with the development of sciences, from narrowly-defined sense to broadly-defined sense. In the beginning, people thought that TFs were only necessary for the transcription initiation of eukaryotic genes, and bacteria did not need TFs. It was understandable that bacteria were excluded from the TFs' scope of application at that time. The rich scientific research achievements in the past 40 years have proved that a large number of transcriptional activators and repressors bind to cis -regulatory elements other than promoters, including enhancers, silencers, and insulators in eukaryotes, as well as a variety of positive and negative regulatory elements in bacteria. These transcriptional regulatory proteins conform to all the basic characteristics of TFs, which make them worthy of the name "transcription factors". Therefore, the new idea is scientific, reasonable, and should be widely accepted and adopted by the academic community. In the future, whether the concept of "transcription factor" will be further expanded to chromatin-modifying proteins such as histone acetyltransferase (HAT) and ncRNAs, and even to "elongation factors" and "termination factors" of transcription, we should be open to this issue. Key words ： transcription factors(TFs) bacteria academic debate [1] Latchman DS. Transcription factors: an overview[J]. Int J Biochem Cell Biol, 1997, 29(12):1305-1312
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