TRANSCRIPTION FACTORS

A fundamental component of the complex instructions for building and maintaining an organism is the regulation of gene expression. The rules governing gene transcription explain why neurons and osteoclasts have completely different forms and functions even though all the nucleated cells in a person contain the same DNA and thus the same genetic information. A neuron is neither an osteoclast nor a granulocyte because of the neuron-specific pattern of gene transcription it elaborates over time and in particular anatomical spaces. The regulation of gene expression comes into play in circumstances as wide-ranging as the maturation of antibody-secreting cells, the production.  . . © 1995, Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.