The Yap family and its role in stress response: Past, Present and Future

SCAN Seminar

Title: The Yap family and its role in stress response: Past, Present and Future

Speaker: Claudina Rodrigues-Pousada

Afilliation: Genomics and Stress Laboratory

Abstrat:

The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae possesses a very flexible and complex program of gene expression when exposed to several environmental challenges. Homeostasis is achieved through a highly coordinated mechanism of transcription regulation involving several transcription factors, each one acting singly or in combination to perform specific functions. I will talk about our current knowledge of the function of the Yap transcription factors in stress response. They belong to b-ZIP proteins comprising eight members with specificity at the DNA binding domain distinct from that of the conventional yeast AP-1 factor, the Gcn4. I will finish with new insights into the links of transcriptional networks controlling several cellular processes. The data found by us and others illustrate how much our comprehension of the biology of Yap family involved in stress response has advanced, and how much research is still needed to unravel the complexity of the role of these transcriptional factors. The complexities of these regulatory interactions as well as the dynamic of these processes are important to understand and to elucidate the control of stress response, a highly conserved process in eukaryotes.