Abstract
Gene expression regulation by transcription factors plays a central role in determining and maintaining cell fate during normal development as well as induced cell fate reprogramming. Induction of cell identity-determining gene regulatory networks by reprogramming factors that act as transcriptional activators is key to induce desired cell fates. Conversely, repression of unwanted genetic programs by transcriptional repressors is equally important to ensure cell fate fidelity. Here we describe engineering techniques to create fusion proteins that allow exploration of the major transcriptional contribution (activation or repression) of specific neuronal reprogramming factors during direct cell fate conversion. This method can be extended to every reprogramming regime to enable the functional categorization of any transcription factor.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by funding from CellNetworks (EXC81), ERC StG No 804710, and the Hector Stiftung II gGmbH to MM and a Helmholtz International Graduate School Fellowship to BW.
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Adrian-Segarra, J.M., Weigel, B., Mall, M. (2021). Combining Cell Fate Reprogramming and Protein Engineering to Study Transcription Factor Functions. In: Ahlenius, H. (eds) Neural Reprogramming. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2352. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1601-7_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1601-7_15
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