Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2017 May 5:611:27-37.
doi: 10.1016/j.gene.2017.02.025. Epub 2017 Feb 22.

Krüppel-like factor 4 (KLF4): What we currently know

Amr M Ghaleb  1 , Vincent W Yang  2
Affiliations
Review

Krüppel-like factor 4 (KLF4): What we currently know

Amr M Ghaleb et al. Gene. .

Abstract

Krüppel-like factor 4 (KLF4) is an evolutionarily conserved zinc finger-containing transcription factor that regulates diverse cellular processes such as cell growth, proliferation, and differentiation. Since its discovery in 1996, KLF4 has been gaining a lot of attention, particularly after it was shown in 2006 as one of four factors involved in the induction of pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Here we review the current knowledge about the different functions and roles of KLF4 in various tissue and organ systems.

Keywords: Cancer; Cell cycle; Differentiation; Diseases; Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition; Gene expression; Inflammation; KLF4; Organs; Proliferation; Stem cells; Tissues; Transcription.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest

No conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, are declared by the authors.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The schematic representation of transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of KLF4 activity. For details please see text.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Comparison of amino acid sequence in splice variants of human KLF4 identified in pancreatic cancer cell lines. Alignment was done using Uniprot. Asterisk (*) indicates positions which have a single, fully conserved residue. Colon (:) indicates conservation between groups of strongly similar properties - scoring > 0.5 in the Gonnet PAM 250 matrix. Period (.) indicates conservation between groups of weakly similar properties - scoring =< 0.5 in the Gonnet PAM 250 matrix.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Shields JM, Christy RJ, Yang VW. Identification and characterization of a gene encoding a gut-enriched Kruppel-like factor expressed during growth arrest. J Biol Chem. 1996;271:20009–17. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dang DT, Pevsner J, Yang VW. The biology of the mammalian Kruppel-like family of transcription factors. Int J Biochem Cell Biol. 2000;32:1103–21. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Geiman DE, Ton-That H, Johnson JM, Yang VW. Transactivation and growth suppression by the gut-enriched Kruppel-like factor (Kruppel-like factor 4) are dependent on acidic amino acid residues and protein-protein interaction. Nucleic Acids Res. 2000;28:1106–13. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Yet SF, McA’Nulty MM, Folta SC, Yen HW, Yoshizumi M, Hsieh CM, et al. Human EZF, a Kruppel-like zinc finger protein, is expressed in vascular endothelial cells and contains transcriptional activation and repression domains. J Biol Chem. 1998;273:1026–31. - PubMed
    1. Shields JM, Yang VW. Two potent nuclear localization signals in the gut-enriched Kruppel-like factor define a subfamily of closely related Kruppel proteins. J Biol Chem. 1997;272:18504–7. - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms

Substances