Walton M, Woodgate A M, Sirimanne E, Gluckman P, Dragunow M
Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Brain Res Mol Brain Res. 1998 Dec 10;63(1):198-204. doi: 10.1016/s0169-328x(98)00275-7.
Activating transcription factor (ATF-2) is a basic region-leucine zipper transcription factor that can mediate a diverse range of transcriptional responses including those generated by various forms of cellular stress. Activation of ATF-2 in response to these stimuli requires post-translational modification, in particular the phosphorylation of Thr69 and Thr71. To investigate whether ATF-2 activation also has a role in neuronal apoptosis, immunocytochemistry using a phospho-specific ATF-2 (Thr71) antibody was carried out in the 21 day old rat brain following a unilateral hypoxic-ischemic (HI) insult and PC12 cells cultured in the presence of okadaic acid. In both models a dramatic increase in phosphorylated ATF-2 was found within cells undergoing apoptosis.
