page_title: Small Maf
section_title: History and discovery
hierarchical_section_title: Small Maf / History and discovery
caption_attribution_description: English: Structures of the Maf family proteins.
context_page_description: Small Maf proteins are basic region leucine zipper-type transcription factors that can bind to DNA and regulate gene regulation. There are three small Maf proteins, namely MafF, MafG, and MafK, in vertebrates. HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee-approved gene names of MAFF, MAFG and MAFK are “v-maf avian musculoaponeurotic fibrosarcoma oncogene homolog F, G, and K”, respectively.
  Through the leucine zipper structures, sMafs form homodimers by themselves and heterodimers with other specific bZIP transcription factors, such as transcription factors of the CNC and Bach families. Because CNC and Bach proteins cannot bind to DNA by themselves, sMafs are indispensable partners of the CNC and Bach families of transcription factors. Through interactions with these transcription factors, sMafs actively participate in transcriptional activation or repression depending on the nature of the heterodimeric partners.
context_section_description: sMaf proteins were identified as members of the Maf family transcription factors. The Maf family is divided into two subfamilies, as follows: the large Maf subfamily (c-Maf, MafA, MafB, and NRL); and the small Maf subfamily (MafF, MafG and MafK) (Fig. 1). The first member of the Maf family is c-Maf, which was cloned as a cellular counterpart of the v-Maf oncogene isolated from avian musculoaponeurotic fibrosarcoma. The MafF, MafG, and MafK genes were later isolated. Because MafF, MafG and MafK are well-conserved 18 kDa proteins that lack a transcriptional activation domain, they are classified into the small Maf subfamily, which is structurally and functionally distinct from the large Maf subfamily.
caption: Fig.1. Structures of the Maf family proteins.
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