Description
Interferon regulatory factor 3 is a member of the interferon regulatory transcription factor (IRF) family. The gene is mapped on 19q13.33. IRF3 is found in an inactive cytoplasmic form that upon serine/threonine phosphorylation forms a complex with CREBBP. IRF3 plays an important role in the innate immune system's response toviral infection. Aggregated MAVS have been found to activate IRF3 dimerization. Although IRF3 increased transcriptional activity from an ISRE-containing promoter, expression of it as a Gal4 fusion protein did not activate expression of a chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) reporter gene containing repeats of the Gal4-binding sites. Translocation of IRF3 was accompanied by an increase in serine and threonine phosphorylation.The transcriptional activators CREBBP and EP300 coimmunoprecipitated with IRF3 only subsequent to viral infection, and the authors stated that these are also subunits of DRAF1