Visualizing CREB family transcription factor activation in living cells [Elektronische Ressource] / Michael Friedrich

Visualizing CREB family transcription factor activation in living cells Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Naturwissenschaften An der Fakultät für Biologie der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Vorgelegt von Michael Friedrich München, Juli 2007 Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Alexander Borst Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Rainer Uhl Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 02.07.07 1. Abstract Many transcription factors integrate a variety of cellular stimuli to produce a transcriptional response. There is increasing evidence that the timing and kinetics of activation are crucial in determining specificity and strength of gene expression, however so far only few tools are available to address these questions in live cells and these have severe drawbacks, like very low signal strength, complicated 2+handling, irreversibility and lack of good targeting properties.The Ca - and cyclic adenosine monophosphat responsive element-binding protein (CREB) and the related ATF-1 and CREM are stimulus inducible transcription factors that link certain forms of cellular activity to changes in gene expression and are involved in differentiation, cancer, survival and neuronal plasticity.