Activating Transcription Factor 7 (ATF7)

Activating transcription factors (ATFs), or cAMP response element-binding proteins (CREBs), bind to cAMP-inducible promoters and are involved in gene transcription. By screening a HeLa cell cDNA library using an adenovirus ATF-binding sequence as the probe, Gaire et al. (1990) isolated cDNAs encoding ATF7, which they called ATFA, and a splice variant. The predicted 483-amino acid full-length phosphoprotein contains a leucine zipper preceded by a region rich in positively charged amino acids and is homologous to ATF2 . Compared with full-length ATF7, the splice variant lacks residues 114 to 134. atf7b is maternally expressed and during embryogenesis its mRNA is ubiquitously distributed, showing an expression pattern similar to that of mammalian Atf7.