Bioinformatic Analysis Of Protein-DNA Binding Specificity Among The Transcription Factor AtERF Subfamilies Of Arabidopsis

Ethylene-responsive element binding factors (ERFs) are members of a novel transcription factors super family that are specific to plants. ERFs are involved in gene regulation of many critical processes in plant through their highly conserved DNA binding domain (DBD) recognizing to their specific DNA motif known as GCC box. Bioinformatic analysis of the Arabidopsis genome has identified 124 members encoding the ERFs protein that was known as Arabidopsis ethylene-responsive element binding factors subfamily (AtERFs), but the biology function of most members in this family were not understood yet. AtERF1 DBD-GCC box complex is the only complex whose NMR solution structure is revealed in this family.