Max-like protein X is a protein that in humans is encoded by the MLX gene. [5] [6]
The product of this gene belongs to the family of basic helix-loop-helix leucine zipper (bHLH-Zip) transcription factors. These factors form heterodimers with Mad proteins and play a role in proliferation, determination and differentiation. This gene product may act to diversify Mad family function by its restricted association with a subset of the Mad family of transcriptional repressors, namely Mad1 and Mad4. Alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been identified for this gene. [6]
MLX (gene) has been shown to interact with MNT, [7] [8] MXD1 [7] [8] and MLXIPL. [7]
MLX must dimerize with MondoA [9] or with MLXIPL (carbohydrate-responsive element-binding protein) to regulate target genes. [10]
This article incorporates text from the United States National Library of Medicine, which is in the public domain.