The phrase "aire function" is not correct in written English.
It appears to be a misspelling or misinterpretation of "air function," which could refer to a function related to air in various contexts.
Example: "The air function of the HVAC system is crucial for maintaining indoor air quality."
Alternatives: "air operation" or "air mechanism."
So far, three main manners are proposed for Aire regulating TRAs expression [ 101], which are summarized in Table 4: (1) Aire as a classical transcription factor directly initiates transcription of target genes; (2) Aire increases TRAs expression nonspecifically by loosening up the chromatin structure; (3) Aire functions through epigenetic modification.
Further studies will be required to clarify whether AIRE can function as a ubiquitin E3 ligase.
As AIRE-regulated genes tend to cluster in genome, AIRE's role in the induction of structural changes of larger chromatin regions has been proposed (18, 20).
If ADAM17 degrades Aire protein as part of its normal function, then we might indeed expect to see the levels of Aire protein to be normal in Adam17/Foxn1 mice even if Aire mRNA levels are low, due to an increased lifespan of the Aire protein in the absence of Adam17.
The most important function of Aire is regulating expression of a panel of peripheral self-antigens in mTECs and promotes the antigen presentation ability of mTECs, participating in T cell negative selection and selftolerance establishment [ 97].
On the basis of this AIRE has been suggested to function as an E3 ligase 164 but this hypothesis is controversial; on the one hand, missense mutations in PHD1 found in patients with APECED were shown to abolish its E3 ligase activity 164, on the other, the PHD1 domain alone was shown not to have intrinsic E3 ubiquitin ligase activity 165.
We further define the age at which overt TEC differentiation is initiated in human fetal thymus, and establish the timing of expression of known mediators of TEC function, including the autoimmune regulator AIRE and the chemokines CCL21 and CCL25.
The AIRE protein (57.5 kDa) has several features which indicate that it might function in transcriptional regulation.
