The nuclear receptor co-repressor 2 ( NCOR2 ) is a transcriptional coregulatory protein that contains several nuclear receptor-interacting domains. In addition, NCOR2 appears to recruit histone deacetylases to DNA promoter regions. Hence NCOR2 assists nuclear receptors in the down regulation of target gene expression. [5] [6] NCOR2 is also referred to as a silencing mediator for retinoid or thyroid-hormone receptors (SMRT) [5] or T3 receptor-associating cofactor 1 (TRAC-1). [6]
NCOR2/SMRT is a transcriptional coregulatory protein that contains several modulatory functional domains including multiple autonomous repression domains as well as two or three C-terminal nuclear receptor-interacting domains. [5] NCOR2/SMRT serves as a repressive coregulatory factor (corepressor) for multiple transcription factor pathways. In this regard, NCOR2/SMRT functions as a platform protein, facilitating the recruitment of histone deacetylases to the DNA promoters bound by its interacting transcription factors. [7]
It is a member of the family of nuclear receptor corepressors; the other human protein that is a member of that family is Nuclear receptor co-repressor 1. [8]
SMRT was initially cloned and characterized in the laboratory of Dr. Ronald M. Evans at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. [5] In another early investigation into this molecule, similar findings were reported in a variant referred to as TRAC-1. [6]
Nuclear receptor co-repressor 2 has been shown to interact with: