• Diverse group of viral, prokaryotic, and eukaryotic proteins which interact with specific sites on DNA or its associated proteins to initiate or inhibit transcription; not all are DNA binding proteins per se, although that is a BT.
  CRISP Thesaurus
  National Institutes of Health, 2006
• Transcription factors are a diverse group of proteins that bind to DNA at specific promoter or enhancer regions. They also bind to DNA-associated proteins to initiate, stimulate, inhibit or terminate transcription. The proteins are often physically associated in a preinitiation complex and contain structural motifs.
  NCI
  U.S. National Cancer Institute, 2021
• Endogenous substances, usually proteins, which are effective in the initiation, stimulation, or termination of the genetic transcription process.
  NLM Medical Subject Headings
  U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2025
• Transcription factor, molecule that controls the activity of a gene by determining whether the gene's DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is transcribed into RNA (ribonucleic acid). The enzyme RNA polymerase catalyzes the chemical reactions that synthesize RNA, using the gene's DNA as a template....
  Encyclopedia Britannica
  Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2025