c-fos : A good starting point
Rapid and Transient
In 1984 Mike Greenberg and Ed Ziff (Greenberg and Ziff, 1984) demonstrated that c-fos transcription is induced very quickly after the stimulation of quiescent fibroblasts with serum or purified growth factors. Moreover, this transcriptional response was remarkably transient, returning to virtually undetectable levels within an hour. He and others quickly extended this observation to show that c-fos transcription could be induced by a wide variety of stimuli in a plethora of cell types.
Run-on transcription assay shows c-fos transcription before and various times (in minutes)after stimulation of PC12 cells with nerve growth factor (figure borrowed from Greenberg, Hermanowski, and Ziff, 1986).
Questions
These properties of c-fos expression make it an excellent tool for addressing a number of interesting biological questions. Among these are questions of how extracellular signals lead to changes in gene expression, how are these changes in gene expression important for a cell, and what determines the rate at which an mRNA is degraded.
New Directions
In recent years we have become more generally interested in issues of intracellular signal transduction, and especially in signal transduction in the nervous system. In addition, we have become more widely interested in the role of transcription factors in controlling cell proliferation, differentiation, and death.
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