Vision is critical for the functional and structural maturation of connections in the mammalian visual system. Visual experience, however, is a subset of a more general requirement for neural activity in transforming immature circuits into the organized connections that subserve adult brain function. Early in development, internally generated spontaneous activity sculpts circuits on the basis of the brain's "best guess" at the initial configuration of connections necessary for function and survival. With maturation of the sense organs, the developing brain relies less on spontaneous activity and increasingly on sensory experience. The sequential combination of spontaneously generated and experience-dependent neural activity endows the brain with an ongoing ability to accommodate to dynamically changing inputs during development and throughout life.

Synaptic Activity and the Construction of Cortical Circuits

As targets for the immunosuppressive drugs cyclosporin A and FK506, transcription factors of the NFAT (nuclear factor of activated T cells) family have been the focus of much attention. NFAT proteins, which are expressed in most immune-system cells, play a pivotal role in the transcription of cytokine genes and other genes critical for the immune response. The activity of NFAT proteins is tightly regulated by the calcium/calmodulin-dependent phosphatase calcineurin, a primary target for inhibition by cyclosporin A and FK506. Calcineurin controls the translocation of NFAT proteins from the cytoplasm to the nucleus of activated cells by interacting with an N-terminal regulatory domain conserved in the NFAT family. The DNA-binding domains of NFAT proteins resemble those of Rel-family proteins, and Rel and NFAT proteins show some overlap in their ability to bind to certain regulatory elements in cytokine genes. NFAT is also notable for its ability to bind cooperatively with transcription factors of the AP-1 (Fos/Jun) family to composite NFAT:AP-1 sites, found in the regulatory regions of many genes that are inducibly transcribed by immune-system cells. This review discusses recent data on the diversity of the NFAT family of transcription factors, the regulation of NFAT proteins within cells, and the cooperation of NFAT proteins with other transcription factors to regulate the expression of inducible genes.

TRANSCRIPTION FACTORS OF THE NFAT FAMILY:Regulation and Function

The MDM2 oncoprotein is a cellular inhibitor of the p53 tumor suppressor in that it can bind the transactivation domain of p53 and downregulate its ability to activate transcription. In certain cancers, MDM2 amplification is a common event and contributes to the inactivation of p53. The crystal structure of the 109-residue amino-terminal domain of MDM2 bound to a 15-residue transactivation domain peptide of p53 revealed that MDM2 has a deep hydrophobic cleft on which the p53 peptide binds as an amphipathic alpha helix. The interface relies on the steric complementarity between the MDM2 cleft and the hydrophobic face of the p53 alpha helix and, in particular, on a triad of p53 amino acids-Phe19, Trp23, and Leu26-which insert deep into the MDM2 cleft. These same p53 residues are also involved in transactivation, supporting the hypothesis that MDM2 inactivates p53 by concealing its transactivation domain. The structure also suggests that the amphipathic alpha helix may be a common structural motif in the binding of a diverse family of transactivation factors to the TATA-binding protein-associated factors.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/274/5289/948.full.pdf

Structure of the MDM2 oncoprotein bound to the p53 tumor suppressor transactivation domain.

The adenoviral oncoprotein E1A induces progression through the cell cycle by binding to the products of the p300/CBP and retinoblastoma gene families. A new cellular p300/CBP-associated factor (P/CAF) having intrinsic histone acetylase activity has been identified that competes with E1A. Exogenous expression of P/CAF in HeLa cells inhibits cell-cycle progression and counteracts the mitogenic activity of E1A. E1A disturbs the normal cellular interaction between p300/CBP and its associated histone acetylase.

A p300/CBP-associated factor that competes with the adenoviral oncoprotein E1A

Some transcription factors contain stretches of polyglutamine encoded by repeats of the trinucleotide CAG. Expansion of the CAG repeat in the androgen receptor (AR) has been correlated with the incidence and severity of X-linked spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (Kennedy's disease). In order to understand the relationship of this mutation to AR function, we constructed ARs that varied in the position and size of the polyglutamine tract, and assayed for the abilities of these mutant receptors to bind androgen and to activate transcription of several different AR-responsive reporter genes. Elimination of the tract in both human and rat AR resulted in elevated transcriptional activation activity, strongly suggesting that the presence of the polyglutamine tract is inhibitory to transactivation. Progressive expansion of the CAG repeat in human AR caused a linear decrease of transactivation function. Importantly, expansion of the tract did not completely eliminate AR activity. We postulate that this residual AR activity may be sufficient for development of male primary and secondary sex characteristics, but may fall below a threshold level of activity necessary for normal maintenance of motor neuron function. This functional abnormality may be representative of other genetic diseases that are associated with CAG expansion mutations in open reading frames, such as spinocerebellar ataxia type I and Huntington's disease.

The length and location of CAG trinucleotide repeats in the androgen receptor N-terminal domain affect transactivation function

Virion protein 16 (VP16) of herpes simplex virus type 1 contains an acidic transcriptional activation domain. Missense mutations within this domain have provided insights into the structural elements critical for its function. Net negative charge contributed to, but was not sufficient for, transcriptional activation by VP16. A putative amphipathic alpha helix did not appear to be an important structural component of the activation domain. A phenylalanine residue at position 442 was exquisitely sensitive to mutation. Transcriptional activators of several classes contain hydrophobic amino acids arranged in patterns resembling that of VP16. Therefore, the mechanism of transcriptional activation by VP16 and other proteins may involve both ionic and specific hydrophobic interactions with target molecules.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/251/4989/87.full.pdf

Critical structural elements of the VP16 transcriptional activation domain

https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/0092-8674(90)90684-7.pdf

W D Cress

Papers

Critical structural elements of the VP16 transcriptional activation domain

Selective inhibition of activated but not basal transcription by the acidic activation domain of VP16: evidence for transcriptional adaptors.