Function
Transcriptional regulator ERG is a nuclear protein that binds purine-rich sequences. ERG is expressed at higher levels in early myelocytes than in mature lymphocytes. Therefore ERG may act as a regulator of differentiation of early hematopoietic cells. Erg gene is vitally important to blood stem cells' unique ability to self-renew could give scientists new opportunities to use blood stem cells for tissue repair, transplantation and other therapeutic applications.
The Mld2 mutation generated through an ENU mutagenesis screen, was the first non-functional allele of Erg. Homozygous Mld2 is embryonic lethal at day 13.5. Adult mice heterozygous for the Mld2 mutation have hematopoietic stem cell defects. DNA binding protein ERG fuses with RNA binding proteins EWS and TLS/FUS in Ewing Sarcoma and Acute Myeloid Leukemias respectively and function as transcriptional activators. ERG and it's fusion proteins EWS-ERG and TLS/FUS-ERG inhibit apoptosis.
Read more about this topic: ERG (gene)
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“Philosophical questions are not by their nature insoluble. They are, indeed, radically different from scientific questions, because they concern the implications and other interrelations of ideas, not the order of physical events; their answers are interpretations instead of factual reports, and their function is to increase not our knowledge of nature, but our understanding of what we know.”
—Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985)
“If the children and youth of a nation are afforded opportunity to develop their capacities to the fullest, if they are given the knowledge to understand the world and the wisdom to change it, then the prospects for the future are bright. In contrast, a society which neglects its children, however well it may function in other respects, risks eventual disorganization and demise.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)
“Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screwdriver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and screws.—The function of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)