Abstract
We previously reported that some plant transcription factors act as active repressors. The repression domain of each factors was identified to be located in the C-terminal region that contains the conserved ERF-associated Amphiphilic Repression (EAR) motif, which is essential for the activity of each repressors. The EAR-motif has been found only in plants. Surprisingly, an amphiphilic motif composed of only 6 amino acids (XLxLXL) is sufficient for strong repression activity. However, mechanisms of the repression mediated by the EAR-motif is still unknown. Because of the short peptide, the EAR-motif as itself does not appear to have enzymatic activity . We predict the EAR-motif may interact with other factor(s), such as co-repressor, to repress transcription.
In this report, we attempted to isolate of factors which could interact with the EAR-motif using Yeast two-hybrid system. We discuss the possible function of the factor and the mechaism of the EAR motif-dependent transcriptional repression.
