植物Dof基因家族功能研究进展

Advances in Research on Function of the Dof Gene Family in Plant

Dof(DNA-binding with one finger)蛋白是植物特有的一类转录因子,在植物生长发育过程中起着重要的作用。在其N-末端有一个52氨基酸残基组成的高度保守的C2-C2单锌指结构,称为Dof保守域,能够特异性的识别植物启动子序列中的AAAG/CTTT作用元件,从而激活或抑制植物基因的表达;其C-末端的转录调控结构域,氨基酸序列较为多变,不具有保守性,是Dof蛋白在植物中功能多样性的基础;同时Dof蛋白也具有和蛋白相互作用的功能。在过去的十几年里,大量的Dof基因被克隆鉴定或从基因组数据库中预测出来,Dof蛋白在植物生长发育中的作用也受到更多关注。本文就Dof转录因子的特点,各物种中已经报道的Dof转录因子的数目、系统进化关系和分类及其生物学功能的进展进行了综述。

The Dof （DNA-binding with one finger） domain proteins are plant-specific transcription factors with a highly conserved DNA-binding domain, and play critical roles as transcriptional regulators in plant growth and development. The Dof domain, which is composed of 52 amino acid residues, includes a single C2-C2 zinc finger in the N-terminal regions of the proteins, and very divergent amino acid sequences outside the Dof domain. The Dof domain was regarded as a bifunctional domain for DNA-binding, which binds specifically to DNA sequences AAAG/CTTT motif, and protein-protein interactions. During the past decade, numerous Dof domain proteins have been identified in plants, and biochemical, molecular biological and molecular genetic analyses revealed that Dof domain proteins function as transcriptional activators or repressors involved in diverse plant-specific biological processes. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge about Dof domain proteins and its biological functions in plants.