title: Phosphorylation of the Brn-3a transcription factor is modulated during differentiation and regulates its functional activity.
abstract: Brn-3a is a transcription factor expressed in a subset of neurons of the peripheral nervous system. Its role encompasses the activation of genes involved in neuronal differentiation and survival. While a lot of data have been produced on Brn-3a target promoters, very little is known about the upstream regulatory signals that mediate its activation in response to differentiation. In this work, we describe for the first time that Brn-3a is phosphorylated in IMR-32 neuroblastoma cells in response to differentiation induced by retinoic acid treatment and that its post-translational modification is potentially mediated by the activation of the MAPK/ERK pathway. Furthermore, we show that the mutation of a putative phosphorylated amino acid strongly reduces the ability of Brn-3a to mediate the differentiation of IMR-32 cells.
authors.affiliation: MMBU, Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, WC1N 1EH London, UK. m.calissano@ich.ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: Mattia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Calissano
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Faulkes
authors.forename: David S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Latchman
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000502:physiology*; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D004789:Enzyme Activation; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D017930:Genes, Reporter; D006801:Humans; D020935:MAP Kinase Signaling System / Q000502:physiology; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D010766:Phosphorylation; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D050819:Transcription Factor Brn-3A / Q000378:metabolism*; D014212:Tretinoin / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D050819:Transcription Factor Brn-3A; D014212:Tretinoin