NRF

NRF may refer to:

See also

NRF1

Nuclear respiratory factor 1, also known as Nrf1, Nrf-1, NRF1 and NRF-1, encodes a protein that homodimerizes and functions as a transcription factor which activates the expression of some key metabolic genes regulating cellular growth and nuclear genes required for respiration, heme biosynthesis, and mitochondrial DNA transcription and replication. The protein has also been associated with the regulation of neurite outgrowth. Alternate transcriptional splice variants, which encode the same protein, have been characterized. Additional variants encoding different protein isoforms have been described but they have not been fully characterized. Confusion has occurred in bibliographic databases due to the shared symbol of NRF1 for this gene and for "nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 1" which has an official symbol of NFE2L1.

Function

Nrf1 functions as a transcription factor that activates the expression of some key metabolic genes regulating cellular growth and nuclear genes required for mitochondrial respiration, and mitochondrial DNA transcription and replication. Nrf1, together with Nrf2, mediates the biogenomic coordination between nuclear and mitochondrial genomes by directly regulating the expression of several nuclear-encoded ETC proteins, and indirectly regulating the three mitochondrial-encoded COX subunit genes by activating mtTFA, mtTFB1, and mtTFB2. The Nrf proteins are also important for the upregulation of antioxidant and xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes during oxidative stress.

NFE2L2

Nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2, also known as NFE2L2 or Nrf2, is a transcription factor that in humans is encoded by the NFE2L2 gene. Nrf2 is a basic leucine zipper (bZIP) protein that regulates the expression of antioxidant proteins that protect against oxidative damage triggered by injury and inflammation. Several drugs that stimulate the NFE2L2 pathway are being studied for treatment of diseases that are caused by oxidative stress.

Function

NFE2L2 and other genes, such as NFE2 and NFE2L1, encode basic leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factors. They share highly conserved regions that are distinct from other bZIP families, such as JUN and FOS, although remaining regions have diverged considerably from each other.

Under normal or unstressed conditions, Nrf2 is kept in the cytoplasm by a cluster of proteins that degrade it quickly. Under oxidative stress, Nrf2 is not degraded, but instead travels to the nucleus where it binds to a DNA promoter and initiates transcription of antioxidative genes and their proteins.