Abstract
We previously reported that the ERF-associated Amphiphilic Repression (EAR) motif, which is conserved in the C-terminal region of a number of transcriptional repressors in plants, is essential for the activity of transcriptional repression. Surprisingly, an amphiphilic motif composed of only six amino acids (XLxLXL) is sufficient to confer the strong repression activity on a transcription factor when fused. However, the mechanism of the repression mediated by the EAR-motif is still unknown. Because of the short peptide, the EAR-motif as itself is unlikely to have enzymatic activity. Therefore, we predict that the EAR-motif may interact with other factor(s), such as co-repressor, to repress the transcription of the target genes. In order to isolate such factor(s) that interact with the EAR-motif, we carried out the screening using Yeast two-hybrid system. In this report we discuss the possible function of factors that we isolated and the mechanism of the EAR motif-dependent transcriptional repression.
