The overall goal of the Laboratory of Molecular Hematology is to determine the mechanisms by which gene expression is regulated. This is a collaborative research project with Brian Safer, Chief of The Laboratory of Molecular Hematology at The National Institutes of Health, Bethesda Maryland.
T cells are essential for cell-mediated immunity.
After treatment with a mitogen, primary T cells exit Go and enter the cell cycle. II lacks specific affinity for DNA and is dependent on the formation of a pre-transcription complex comprised of the basal transcription factors that forms around the TATA box. It is known that the relative level of max and c-myc protein in a cell affects the growth rate and the state of differentiation of a cell. Here report that alpha-pal is phosphorylated in vitro by the mitogen activated kinase erk1 and heterodimerizes with max protein. In order to clone this gene we are attempting to purify, via FPLC, sufficient quantities of the protein to obtain sequence data.