Abstract
Transcription factors regulate gene expression and are responsible for various biological processes such as cell proliferation, cell differentiation, and apoptosis. Recently, analysis of genomes in various organisms is advancing rapidly, and technology for the analysis of multiple gene expression such as DNA chip technology is developing rapidly. Therefore, the necessity has arisen for many researchers in various fields to obtain information on transcription factors, which regulate gene expression. “TRANSFAC” is a database of transcription factors. In this paper, I will explain the practical and elementary operations not only of the TRANSFAC database to search for information on the transcriptional regulatory mechanism of transcription factors and genes, but also of a program, MatInspector, to predict the potential binding sites of the gene that interests you.
