Seyed Mohammad Ghafoori

Mr. Seyed Mohammad Ghafoori

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Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

3Years (2024-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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16 July 2024 in Cells
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
SGSeyed Mohammad Ghafoori
Seyed Mohammad Ghafoori
ASAshish Sethi
Ashish Sethi
GPGayle Frances Petersen
Gayle Frances Petersen
MTMohammad Hossein Tanipour
Mohammad Hossein Tanipour
PGPaul Gooley
Paul Gooley
JFJade Kenneth Forwood
Jade Kenneth Forwood
SOX proteins are a family of transcription factors (TFs) that play critical functions in sex determination, neurogenesis, and chondrocyte differentiation, as well as cardiac, vascular, and lymphatic development. There are 20 SOX family members in humans, each sharing a 79-residue L-shaped high mobility group (HMG)-box domain that is responsible for DNA binding. SOX2 was recently shown to interact with long non-coding RNA and large-intergenic non-coding RNA to regulate embryonic stem cell and neuronal differentiation. The RNA binding region was shown to reside within the HMG-box domain; however, the structural details of this binding remain unclear. Here, we show that all SOX family members, except group H, interact with RNA. Our mutational experiments demonstrate that the disordered C-terminal region of the HMG-box domain plays an important role in RNA binding. Further, by determining a high-resolution structure of the HMG-box domain of the group H family member SOX30, we show that despite differences in RNA binding ability, SOX30 shares a very similar secondary structure with other SOX protein HMG-box domains. Together, our study provides insight into the interaction of SOX TFs with RNA.