Anti CCAAT/Enhancer-Binding Protein Beta (C/EBP Beta) mAb (Clone 7D2)

Transcription factors (TFs) directly interpret the genome, performing the first step in decoding the DNA sequence. Many function as ‘‘master regulators’’ and ‘‘selector genes’’, exerting control over processes that specify cell types and developmental patterning (Lee and Young, 2013) and controlling specific pathways such as immune responses (Singh et al., 2014). In the laboratory, TFs can drive cell differentiation (Fong and Tapscott, 2013) and even de-differentiation and trans-differentiation (Takahashi and Yamanaka, 2016). Mutations in TFs and TF-binding sites underlie many human diseases. Their protein sequences, regulatory regions, and physiological roles are often deeply conserved among metazoans (Bejerano et al., 2004; Carroll, 2008), suggesting that global gene regulatory ‘‘networks’’ may be similarly conserved. And yet, there is high turnover in individual regulatory sequences (Weirauch and Hughes, 2010), and over longer timescales, TFs duplicate and diverge. The same TF can regulate different genes in different cell types (e.g., ESR1 in breast and endometrial cell lines [Gertz et al., 2012]), indicating that regulatory networks are dynamic even within the same organism. Determining how TFs are assembled in different ways to recognize binding sites and control transcription is daunting yet paramount to under-standing their physiological roles, decoding specific functional properties of genomes, and mapping how highly specific expression programs are orchestrated in complex organisms. [from: Lambert SA, Jolma A, Campitelli LF, Das PK, Yin Y. (2018) The Human Transcription Factors. Cell. 172:650-665.]

C/EBP β is a bZIP transcription factor which can bind as a homodimer to certain DNA regulatory regions. It can also form heterodimers with the related proteins CEBP-alpha, CEBP-delta, and CEBP-gamma. This protein is important in the regulation of genes involved in immune and inflammatory responses and has been shown to bind to the IL-1 response element in the IL-6 gene, as well as to regulatory regions of several acute-phase and cytokine genes.

References:
1) Tsukada et al. (2011) Cytokine. 54:6-19.