Transcriptional regulators of oxidative stress-inducible genes in prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

It appears that redox regulation is an important mechanism for the control of transcription factor activation. The role of oxidation-reduction is probably determined in part by the structure of the transcription factors. For example, the presence of cysteine residues within the DNA binding sites may sensitize a transcription factor to ROS. The ROS-mediated regulation of transcription factors is specific, some ROS are more efficient than other ROS in activating defined regulators. While the protective antioxidant responses induced by ROS in prokaryotes and eukaryotes are rather conserved (for example, SOD, HSP...), the regulators for these genes do not appear to be conserved. Further studies designed to fully characterize these regulators and understand the subtle mechanisms involved in redox gene regulation are ongoing, and should provide the theoretical basis for clinical approaches using antioxidant therapies in human diseases in which oxidative stress is implicated.