TransFac

About TransFac:

TRANSFAC® is a database on eukaryotic cis-acting regulatory DNA elements and trans-acting factors. It covers the whole range from yeast to human.

TRANSFAC® started 1988 with a printed compilation (Nucleic Acids Res. 16: 1879-1902, 1988) and was transferred into computer-readable format in 1990 (BioTechForum - Advances in Molecular Genetics (J. Collins, A.J. Driesel, eds.) 4:95-108, 1991). The basic structures of Table 1 and 2 of the compilation were taken as the core of the emergent database. The aim of the early compilation as well as of the TRANSFAC® database is

• to guide through a meanwhile overwhelming amount of data in a field which is connected to nearly all areas of modern molecular biology;
• to map the regulatory sites in the individual genes and, ultimately, in the genome(s) as a whole;
• to develop a tool for the identification of regulatory elements in newly unravelled genomic sequences;
• to provide a basis for a more comprehensive understanding of how the genome governs transcriptional control.

The TRANSFAC® data have been generally extracted from the original literature, occasionally they have been taken from other compilations (Faisst and Meyer, Nucleic Acids Res. 20:3-26, 1992; Dhawale and Lande, Nucleic Acids Res. 21:5537-5546, 1994) which is appropriately indicated. Thus, the main responsibility for the correctness of the data is up to the authors, while we have to assume any responsibility for correctly extracting their publications. In a long term, a direct submission system should be envisaged similar to that established for depositing sequence data in the sequence data libraries.

TransFac tools:

Match and Patch are tools for searching potential binding sites for transcription factors in any sequence. Match uses a matrix-based search, whereas Patch uses a pattern-based search.

Using TransFac on this server

TransFac records all results of searches to user-specific areas. The main TransFac web page will require logging in with your NIH domain username and password (the same ones used for ITAS, Exchange Email, and my.nih.gov). Enter your username without the prefix (i.e. joeuser, NOT nih\joeuser).

This is a secure server with encrypted communications. When you connect to an application on this server, you may see a popup window about the certificate for this website. Accept the certificate and continue.

Results of TransPath, ExPlain and TransFac searches will be stored on the server for one month, and will be deleted after that.

The databases and tools on this server are available to all NIH personnel. TransFac, TransPath and ExPlain were developed by BioBase International. This server is maintained by the Helix Systems, CIT, NIH.