Intron-exon organization of the NF-Y genes. Tissue-specific splicing modifies an activation domain.

NF-Y is a highly conserved transcription factor which recognizes CCAAT motifs in a variety of genes. We report here the genomic organization of the genes encoding both subunits, which gives interesting clues about the functional organization of the proteins. We also report the existence of isoforms of NF-YA which result from differential splicing. These alternative splicing events map within a glutamine-rich activation domain and show a marked cell- and tissue-specific bias.