The key role of PU.1/SPI-1 in B cells, myeloid cells and macrophages

✍ Scribed by Jorge Lloberas; Concepció Soler; Antonio Celada

• Book ID: 104299087
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 354 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-5699
• DOI: 10.1016/s0167-5699(99)01442-5

✦ Synopsis

ince the discovery of the v-ets gene in the E26 avian retrovirus, a growing number of ets-related gene sequences have been isolated from many organisms. There are now about 45 members in this family and they are expressed in species ranging from yeast to human. All Ets family members have a common DNA-binding domain of about 85 amino acids, referred to as the ETS domain 1 . The sequence recognized by these proteins contains the core motif 5Õ-GGAA/T-3Õ (Ref. 1) but flanking sequences provide some specificity to the binding of individual Ets proteins.

This review focuses on one member of the Ets family: the PU.1/SPI-1 protein. The gene was originally isolated from erythroid leukaemia cells induced by the Friend leukaemia virus, which integrates at a locus referred to as SPI-1 in 95% of the tumours 2 . This integration upregulates the expression of the putative oncogene spi-1 (Ref. 3).