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Review
. 2002;3(6):REVIEWS3008.
doi: 10.1186/gb-2002-3-6-reviews3008. Epub 2002 May 31.

The T-box family

Val Wilson  1 , Frank L Conlon
Affiliations
Review

The T-box family

Val Wilson et al. Genome Biol. 2002.

Abstract

Transcription factors of the T-box family are required both for early cell-fate decisions, such as those necessary for formation of the basic vertebrate body plan, and for differentiation and organogenesis. When mutated, T-box genes give dramatic phenotypes in mouse and zebrafish, and they have been implicated both in fundamentals of limb patterning and in a number of human congenital malformations such as Holt-Oram, ulnar-mammary and DiGeorge syndromes, as well as being amplified in a subset of cancers. Genes encoding members of the T-box family have recently been shown to comprise approximately 0.1% of genomes as diverse as those of nematodes and humans and have been identified in a wide variety of animals from ctenophores (comb jellies) to mammals; they are, however, completely absent from genomes from other organisms (such as the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana).

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Ribbon diagram of crystal structures of (a,b) Xenopus Xbra and (c) human TBX3 bound to DNA. Beta strands are depicted in red and alpha helices in (a,b) orange or (c) turquoise. Reproduced with permission from [18,61].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Conservation of selected T-box residues and the presence of diagnostic residues for different members of the family. Position 149 is always a lysine in Xbra proteins from different species (blue) but not in other T-box proteins (red). A diagram of Xenopus Xbra is above, showing the relative positions of the DNA-binding domain, the nuclear localization signal, and the transcriptional activation domain.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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