Structural studies of NF-kappa B signaling

NF-kappa Bs are a family of transcription factors that control a number of essential cellular functions including immune responses, cell proliferation and antiapoptosis. NF-kappa B activities are tightly regulated through upstream signaling molecules and downstream feedback loops. In this review, structural discoveries in the NF-kappa B pathway are presented. With the structure information, the following questions may be addressed: (1) How do NF-kappa Bs activate their target genes? (2) How do I kappa Bs inhibit NF-kappa B activities in the steady state? (3) How do upstream signaling molecules activate the NF-kappa B pathway? and (4) How do the feedback loops shut down the NF-kappa B pathway to avoid constitutive NF-kappa B activation?