Nitrosation and oxidation in the regulation of gene expression

A growing body of evidence suggests that the cellular response to oxidative and nitrosative stress is primarily regulated at the level of transcription. Posttranslational modification of transcription factors may provide a mechanism by which cells sense these redox changes. In bacteria, for example, OxyR senses redox-related changes via oxidation or nitrosylation of a free thiol in the DNA binding region. This mode of regulation may serve as a paradigm for redox-sensing by eukaryotic transcription factors as most-including NF-kappa B, AP-1, and p53-contain reactive thiols in their DNA binding regions, the modification of which alters binding in vitro. Several of these transcription factors have been found to be sensitive to both reactive oxygen species and nitric oxide-related species in vivo. It remains entirely unclear, however, if oxidation or nitrosylation of eukaryotic transcription factors is an important mode of regulation, or whether transcriptional activating pathways are principally controlled at other redox-sensitive levels.