One of the main current areas of research in synthetic biology is the development of artificially designed DNA binding proteins for use in transcription regulation of endogenous genes. Currently used systems of artificial transcription regulation rely on mechanisms of binding site competition and on the use of effector domains for activation of repression of transcription. In this work, we examined the effects of proximal binding of TALE (transcription activator-like effector) proteins, to zinc-finger transcription factors Zif268 and Gal4. Binding of TALE proteins in the vicinity of Zif268 and Gal4 was found to have an effect on their transcriptional activation, dependent of the position and distance between binding sites. As TALE proteins can be designed to bind in the vicinity of endogenous transcription factors, this method could be employed as a novel approach to transcriptional regulation.
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