Foxg1 and companions: not only transcription factors

Abstract

Here, moving from our most recent results on Foxg1 biology, we firstly summarize available information about a few, special pleiotropic effectors of neurodevelopmental interest, involved in control of both transcription and post-transcriptional steps of gene expression. Next, upon further scanning of literature, we report evidence that, not strictly limited to neurodevelopmental processes, such functional pleiotropy also applies to other transcription factors, involved in physiology and homeostasis. Besides, by systematic mining of a major public protein-protein interaction database, we collect robust evidence that an involvement of "canonical" transcription factors in post-transcriptional control of gene expression may be a pervasive phenomenon, characterizing hundreds of effectors. Finally, we discuss the biological meaning of these findings and propose three evolutionary mechanisms that may have conspired to such unexpected scenario.