Soft Power of Nonconsensus Protein-DNA Binding

if gene promoters are extended with DNA sequences containing repeating nucleotide patterns without specific protein-binding motifs, it is possible to predict the resulting changes in gene expression from so-called nonconsensus protein-DNA binding. The authors found that during embryonic stem cell (ESC) differentiation, transcription factor (TF) preferences for such simple nucleotide repeats undergo distinct changes. This suggests an intriguing possibility that nonconsensus binding may help direct TFs to different subclasses of binding sites in different cell types.