ARID proteins come in from the desert

Members of the recently discovered ARID (AT-rich interaction domain) family of DNA-binding proteins are found in fungi and invertebrate and vertebrate metazoans. ARID-encoding genes are involved in a variety of biological pro cesses including embryonic development, cell lineage gene regulation and ce ll cycle control. Although the specific roles of this domain and of ARID-co ntaining proteins in transcriptional regulation are yet to be elucidated, t hey include both positive and negative transcriptional regulation and a lik ely involvement in the modification of chromatin structure.