Kovács K J
Laboratory of Molecular Neuroendocrinology, Institute of Experimental Medicine, Budapest, Hungary.
Neurochem Int. 1998 Oct;33(4):287-97. doi: 10.1016/s0197-0186(98)00023-0.
This article summarizes the achievements that have been accumulated about the role of c-Fos as a transcription factor and as a functional marker of activated neurons. Since its discovery, more than a decade ago, as an inducible immediate-early gene encoding a transcription factor, or third messenger, involved in stimulus-transcription coupling and mediation of extracellular signals to long-term changes in cellular phenotype, c-fos became the most widely used powerful tool to delineate individual neurons as well as extended circuitries that are responsive to wide variety of external stimuli. There still remain uncertainties as to how general is the c-fos induction in the central neurons, and whether the threshold of c-fos induction is comparable along a certain neuronal circuit. The major limitation of this technology is that c-fos does not mark cells with a net inhibitory synaptic or transcriptional drive, and c-fos induction, as a generic marker of trans-synaptic activation, does not provide evidence for transcriptional activation of specific target genes in a certain cell type of interest. The first part of the review focuses on recent functional data on c-fos as transcription factor, while the second part discusses c-fos as a cellular marker of transcriptional activity in the stress-related circuitry.
本文总结了在c-Fos作为转录因子以及作为活化神经元功能标志物方面所积累的成果。自十多年前被发现以来，作为一种参与刺激-转录偶联以及将细胞外信号介导为细胞表型长期变化的可诱导即早基因，也就是第三信使，c-Fos成为了用于描绘对多种外部刺激有反应的单个神经元以及扩展神经回路的最为广泛使用的有力工具。关于c-Fos在中枢神经元中的诱导有多普遍，以及沿着特定神经回路c-Fos诱导的阈值是否相当，仍然存在不确定性。这项技术的主要局限在于，c-Fos不会标记具有净抑制性突触或转录驱动的细胞，并且作为跨突触激活的通用标志物，c-Fos诱导并未提供特定感兴趣细胞类型中特定靶基因转录激活的证据。综述的第一部分聚焦于关于c-Fos作为转录因子的近期功能数据，而第二部分则讨论c-Fos作为应激相关神经回路中转录活性的细胞标志物。
