Scanning the human genome with combinatorial transcription factor libraries

Published online: 18 February 2003, doi:10.1038/nbt794
March 2003 Volume 21 Number 3 pp 269 - 274

Pilar Blancafort, Laurent Magnenat & Carlos F. Barbas III.
 

Department of Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037.
Correspondence should be addressed to C F Barbas. e-mail: carlos@scripps.edu

Despite the critical importance of transcription factors in mediating gene regulation, there exists no general, genome-wide tool that uses transcription factors to induce or silence a target gene or select for a particular phenotype. In the strategy described here, we prepared large combinatorial libraries of artificial transcription factors comprising three or six zinc-finger domains, and selected transcription factor