Immediate early gene | EPFL Graph Search

Immediate early genes (IEGs) are genes which are activated transiently and rapidly in response to a wide variety of cellular stimuli. They represent a standing response mechanism that is activated at the transcription level in the first round of response to stimuli, before any new proteins are synthesized. IEGs are distinct from "late response" genes, which can only be activated later, following the synthesis of early response gene products. Thus IEGs have been called the "gateway to the genomic response". The term can describe viral regulatory proteins that are synthesized following viral infection of a host cell, or cellular proteins that are made immediately following stimulation of a resting cell by extracellular signals. In their role as "gateways to genomic response", many IEG products are natural transcription factors or other DNA-binding proteins. However, other important classes of IEG products include secreted proteins, cytoskeletal proteins, and receptor subunits. Neuronal IEGs are used prevalently as a marker to track brain activities in the context of memory formation and development of psychiatric disorders. IEGs are also of interest as a therapeutic target for treatment of human cytomegalovirus. The earliest identified and best characterized IEGs include c-fos, c-myc and c-jun, genes that were found to be homologous to retroviral oncogenes. Thus IEGs are well known as early regulators of cell growth and differentiation signals. However, other findings suggest roles for IEGs in many other cellular processes. Expression of IEGs occurs in response to internal and external cell signals, occurring rapidly without the need to synthesize new transcription factors. The genetic sequences of IEGs are generally shorter in length (~19kb) and exhibit an enrichment of specific transcription factor binding sites, offering redundancy in transcription initiation. Translation of IEG mRNA into proteins occurs regardless of protein synthesis inhibitors which disrupts the process of protein production.

Fear learning induces synaptic potentiation between engram neurons in the rat lateral amygdala

Henry Markram, Rodrigo de Campos Perin

The lateral amygdala (LA) encodes fear memories by potentiating sensory inputs associated with threats and, in the process, recruits 10-30% of its neurons per fear memory engram. However, how the local network within the LA processes this information and w ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Tissue clearing applications in memory engram research

Johannes Gräff, Kwok Yui Reymond Yip

A memory engram is thought to be the physical substrate of the memory trace within the brain, which is generally depicted as a neuronal ensemble activated by learning to fire together during encoding and retrieval. It has been postulated that engram cell e ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2023

Engram cell connectivity as a mechanism for information encoding and memory function

Maurizio Ferdinando Pezzoli

Information derived from experiences is incorporated into the brain as changes to ensembles of cells, termed engram cells, which allow memory storage and recall. The mechanism by which those changes hold specific information is unclear. Here, we test the h ...

Cambridge2023