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Transcription Factors:
The Bookmarks of Our Genome Book
Dr Debostuti Ghoshdastidar*
Email: debostutighosh@gmail.com
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The Genome Book. “It’s in my DNA.” Does this phrase sound familiar? We find it printed on t-shirts and in the lyrics of popular songs, and we often say it ourselves when appreciated for our talents. We are quite right when we claim our DNA to be special because each one of us carries a unique set of DNA. This entire set of DNA put together can be likened to a book called the genome. Our unique genome makes us who we are. My genome book is made of individual chapters called genes, with chapter titles such as dance, cooking, anger, brown eyes, sleepyhead, and so on. While your very own genome could have genes for football, black hair, shyness, music, and many more it’s a real fat book with more than 25,000 chapters (genes). Each gene, a lot like the chapters in our textbooks, begins with
an introduction, goes on to the body matter, and ends with a conclusion.
Bookmarks in the Genome Book. It is the body matter of the chapter, called the coding region of the gene, which contains the details for making you a shy footballer-musician with jet black hair. A large protein complex called RNA polymerase serves as “eyes” to read through the instructions in the coding region. But, whether the RNA polymerase will read through a gene chapter or simply overlook it is directed by another family of proteins called transcription factors (TFs). TFs, unlike RNA polymerase, access each gene chapter in the introduction section, called the promoter region. Only when the RNA polymerase finds a TF in the promoter region (introduction) of the gene chapter, will it go ahead and read the coding region (body
* Dr Debostuti Ghoshdastidar, Post Doctoral Fellow from Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, is pursuing her research on “Reading DNA in Context - Effect of Motif Environment on Transcription Factor Binding”. Her popular science story entitled “Transcription Factors: The Bookmarks of Our Genome Book” has been selected for AWSAR Award.
