AUTHOR=Llorca Carles M. , Potschin Maren , Zentgraf Ulrike TITLE=bZIPs and WRKYs: two large transcription factor families executing two different functional strategies JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science VOLUME=5 YEAR=2014 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2014.00169 DOI=10.3389/fpls.2014.00169 ISSN=1664-462X ABSTRACT=

bZIPs and WRKYs are two important plant transcription factor (TF) families regulating diverse developmental and stress-related processes. Since a partial overlap in these biological processes is obvious, it can be speculated that they fulfill non-redundant functions in a complex regulatory network. Here, we focus on the regulatory mechanisms that are so far described for bZIPs and WRKYs. bZIP factors need to heterodimerize for DNA-binding and regulation of transcription, and based on a bioinformatics approach, bZIPs can build up more than the double of protein interactions than WRKYs. In contrast, an enrichment of the WRKY DNA-binding motifs can be found in WRKY promoters, a phenomenon which is not observed for the bZIP family. Thus, the two TF families follow two different functional strategies in which WRKYs regulate each other’s transcription in a transcriptional network whereas bZIP action relies on intensive heterodimerization.