An update of the unceasingly growing and diverse AraC/XylS family of transcriptional activators

Transcriptional factors play an important role in gene regulation in all organisms, especially in Bacteria. Here special emphasis is placed in the AraC/XylS family of transcriptional regulators. This is one of the most abundant as many predicted members have been identified and more members are added because more bacterial genomes are sequenced. Given the way more experimental evidence has mounded in the past decades, we decided to update the information about this captivating family of proteins. Using bioinformatics tools on all the data available for experimentally characterized members of this family, we found that many members that display a similar functional classification can be clustered together and in some cases they have a similar regulatory scheme. A proposal for grouping these proteins is also discussed. Additionally, an analysis of surveyed proteins in bacterial genomes is presented. Altogether, the current review presents a panoramic view into this family and we hope it helps to stimulate future research in the field. The AraC/XylS family of transcriptional regulators includes multiple regulators that are important in molecular biology and they represent an exciting group of proteins because of the variability of functions as well as the regulatory schemes they are involved in, making them exceptional as both tools and targets.

Automated summary

This review emphasizes the role of AraC/XylS family of transcriptional regulators in gene regulation, highlighting their abundance and diversity in bacterial genomes. By analyzing experimentally characterized members, the study proposes a grouping strategy and discusses the functional classification and regulatory schemes observed in these proteins. Additionally, a survey of proteins in bacterial genomes is presented, providing a panoramic view of this fascinating family of transcriptional regulators for future research.