Characterization

NRF2 plays a crucial role in cellular anti-oxidant defense, making it a therapeutic target for neurodegenerative diseases and cancer.  Under unstressed conditions, NRF2 is kept in the cytoplasm by a cluster of proteins that degrade it quickly.  Under oxidative stress, NRF2 is not degraded, but instead translocates to the nucleus where it binds to a DNA promoter and initiates gene expression.  In the nucleus, NRF2 forms a heterodimer with a small Maf protein and binds to the Antioxidant Response Element in the upstream promoter region of many antioxidative genes, and initiates their transcription. Signosis has developed the NRF2 ELISA kit for the analysis of the NRF2 pathway and to facilitate studying activation of different NRF2-related pathways.