Investigating the role of ARNT isoforms as bHLH/PAS transcriptional regulators / Robyn Jane Kewley.

Abstract

The aims of this thesis were to explore novel roles of ARNT as a transcriptional regulator and to investigate possible differential activities of ARNT isoforms. To investigate whether ARNT plays roles as a transcription factor additional to being a partner to known factors such as DR and HIF-a, a search for downstream target genes was planned. Hepa cell lines overexpressing a dominant negative form of ARNT and a Suppression Subtractive Hybridisation PCR approach were used. Complementing these studies was a search for differences in function between two alternatively spliced forms of ARNT, ARNT and Alt ARNT. Specifically, the author sought to determine if ARNT and Alt ARNT could be differentially phosphorylated and whether such phosphorylation could affect DNA-binding properties. --p. 105.