Activators and repressors of transcription

Transcription factors are macromolecules that are involved in transcriptional regulation by interacting with specific DNA regions, and they can cause activation or silencing of their target genes. Gene regulation by transcriptional control explains different biological processes such as development, function, and disease. Even though transcriptional control has been of great interest for molecular biology, much still remains unknown. This study was designed to generate the most current list of human transcription factor genes. Unique entries of transcription factor genes were collected and entered into Microsoft Office 2007 Access Database along with information about each gene. Microsoft Office 2007 Access tools were used to analyze and group collected entries according to different properties such as activator or repressor record, or presence of certain protein domains. Furthermore, protein sequence alignments of members of different groups were performed, and phylogenetic trees were used to analyze relationship between different members of each group. This work contributes to the existing knowledge of transcriptional regulation in humans.