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HEREDITAS ›› 2010, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (10): 1009-1017.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1005.2010.01009

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The databases of transcription factors

CHEN Hong-Fei, WANG Jin-Ke   

  1. The State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, The Experimental Center of Biotechnology and Biomaterials, School of Biological Sciences and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
  • Received:2009-12-25 Revised:2010-03-01 Online:2010-10-20 Published:2010-10-20
  • Contact: WANG Jin-Ke E-mail:wangjinke@seu.edu.cn

Abstract: The control of gene transcription is a critical level of gene expression regulation. The interactions between transcription factors (TF) and their DNA binding sites (TFBS) play a key role at this level. In order to decipher the molecular mechanism of the interactions of TFs with TFBSs and construct transcription regulatory network, it is necessary to systematically collect, save, and analyze the information of discovered TFs and their TFBSs. In recent years, multiple TF and TFBS-related databases have been established. These databeses significantly promoted the TF-related studies in the fields of molecular biology, bioinformatics, and system biology. This paper summarized the contents, characteristics, access, and advances of main TFs and TFBSs-related databases, including TRANSFAC, JASPAR, TFDB, TRRD, TRED, PAZAR, MAPPER and others.

Key words: transcription factor, DNA binding site, database, bioinformatics