title: The dangers of 'splicing and dicing': on the use of chimeric transcriptional activators in vitro.
abstract: Chimeric transcription factors composed of heterologous DNA-binding and activation domains are often used to study the regulation of gene expression. The fact that such preparations also contain molecules in which only one of the two domains is functional is often overlooked, but a surprisingly small proportion of inactive domains could cause serious problems in the interpretation of quantitative data.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Texas at Austin 78712, USA.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kodadek
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Johnston
mesh_terms: D004247:DNA / Q000378:metabolism; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics; D015534:Trans-Activators / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins; D015534:Trans-Activators; D004247:DNA