News Releases & Research Results Unveiling the DNA-binding mechanism of the transcription factor GATA3 which controls cell fate: A clue to elucidate etiologies of breast cancer and other diseases

The results of the international collaborative research project conducted by Professor Hitoshi Kurumizaka of the Laboratory of Chromatin Structure and Function, Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, the University of Tokyo; Dr. Paul Wade of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; Professor Motoki Takaku of the U.S. University of North Dakota; and others.

• The mechanism by which a class of transcription factors controls cell fate by regulating transcription, and identifies and binds to its target DNA sequences in chromatin remains unknown. In this study, the research group unveiled a mechanism by which the transcription factor GATA3 recognizes and binds to its target DNA sequences in chromatin.
• Since mutations in the GATA3 gene are related to breast cancer and other diseases, the results of this study will contribute to elucidate the etiologies of cancers and other diseases and help to establish therapeutic modalities for their treatment.

This research project was conducted with the support of the Platform Project for Supporting Drug Discovery and Life Science Research (BINDS) by AMED.

The results of this research project were published online in Nature Communications, a British scientific journal, on August 18.

Tanaka H., et al. Interaction of the pioneer transcription factor GATA3 with nucleosomes Nature Communications
DOI：10.1038/s41467-020-17959-y