TFs in cancer

Transcription factors (TFs) constitute a group of proteins that is well documented for their role in cancer, along with kinases, membrane receptors, extracellular ligands and other functional groups of proteins.

TFs are documented to play a regulatory role, via binding to their specific sites and regulation of gene expression, in a big variety of different cancer types.

Over 35 years information on TFs is being collected in the TRANSFAC database, with a focus on the TF-target genes, TF binding sites, positional weight matrices (PWMs). Along with these details, TRANSFAC presents information on protein sequences and domain structure of TFs. Based on the structure of DNA-binding domains, a comprehensive classification of TFs has been developed.

The core information on TFs available in TRANSFAC is being complemented by the details collected in TRANSPATH and HumanPSD databases.

As one can find in HumanPSD release 2022.1, 1073 TFs belonging to different classes of DNA-binding domains are documented as biomarkers for 246 various cancer types, including neoplasms, carcinomas, sarcomas, lymphomas, leukemia, myeloma, granuloma, blastoma, glioma and some others. The same TF can be known as biomarker for several cancers, and simultaneously for one particular cancer type several different TFs might be known as biomarkers. The total number of the links between 1073 TFs and 246 various cancer types is 6800. These numbers include correlative, causal, preventative associations, as well as TF involvement in the disease mechanism or being a drug target.

Further, in HumanPSD release 2022.1, one can find information which drugs are targeted by 1073 TFs mentioned above. 134 FDA approved drugs and 139 investigational drugs are documented as being targeted by at least one of these TFs.

In the TRANSPATH database release 2022.1, one can find further details for 1073 TFs mentioned above. Among these TFs, 124 are documented  to be included in 500 different chains and pathways, and total number of links between 124 TFs and 500 chains/pathways is 922.

For the signal transduction proteins, and TFs are among them, TRANSPATH presents details on the post-translational modification (PTMs), protein-protein interactions, and more. For 1073 TFs, there are 37,712 protein-protein interactions documented.

On this page, we share with you a series of brief summaries on transcription factors, the role of which in cancer has been shown in recent publications. Among other details, each summary contains an overview of the corresponding Locus Report in the integrated TRANSFAC + HumanPSD + TRANSPATH database.