Nanoclustering of a plant transcription factor enables strong yet specific DNA binding
Kasper Arfman, Bas P.J. Janssen, Robin Romein, Sophie van den Boom, Maarten van der Woude, Lucas Jansen, Maartje Rademaker, Jorge Hernández-García, João Jacob Ramalho, Melissa Dipp-Álvarez, Martijn de Roij, Jasper Lamers, Johannes Hohlbein, Jan Willem Borst, Dolf Weijers, Carlo P.M. van Mierlo, Joris Sprakel · 2026
Read Nanoclustering of a plant transcription factor enables strong yet specific DNA binding by Kasper Arfman, Bas P.J. Janssen, Robin Romein, Sophie van den Boom, Maarten van der Woude, Lucas Jansen, Maartje Rademaker, Jorge Hernández-García, João Jacob Ramalho, Melissa Dipp-Álvarez, Martijn de Roij, Jasper Lamers, Johannes Hohlbein, Jan Willem Borst, Dolf Weijers, Carlo P.M. van Mierlo, Joris Sprakel (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13398500.txt.
Description
Kasper Arfman and colleagues show a plant gene switch working in tiny clusters rather than alone or in liquid droplets. Their 2026 study uses MpARF2, an auxin response factor from the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. Textbooks picture such transcription factors binding DNA solo or in small teams, while newer work suggested shapeless condensates; which picture holds inside a real nucleus was open.
Under natural conditions the factor forms nanoscopic clusters, and that state buys a rare trio: tight binding, switch-like response and exact sequence choice at once. Neither solo binding nor droplets deliver all three together. Clustering, the authors propose, may be how many gene switches achieve the precision gene control demands.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Kasper Arfman, Bas P.J. Janssen, Robin Romein, Sophie van den Boom, Maarten van der Woude, Lucas Jansen, Maartje Rademaker, Jorge Hernández-García, João Jacob Ramalho, Melissa Dipp-Álvarez, Martijn de Roij, Jasper Lamers, Johannes Hohlbein, Jan Willem Borst, Dolf Weijers, Carlo P.M. van Mierlo, Joris Sprakel |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 73 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |