AUTHOR=Chowdhury Md Arifur Rahman , Haq Md Mazedul , Lee Jeong Hwan , Jeong Sangyun TITLE=Multi-faceted regulation of CREB family transcription factors JOURNAL=Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience VOLUME=Volume 17 - 2024 YEAR=2024 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/molecular-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnmol.2024.1408949 DOI=10.3389/fnmol.2024.1408949 ISSN=1662-5099 ABSTRACT=cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) is a ubiquitously expressed nuclear transcription factor, which can be constitutively activated regardless of external stimuli or be inducibly activated by external factors such as stressors, hormones, neurotransmitters, and growth factors. However, CREB controls diverse biological processes including cell growth, differentiation, proliferation, survival, apoptosis in a cell-type-specific manner. The diverse functions of CREB appear to be due to CREB-mediated differential gene expression that depends on cAMP response elements and multi-faceted regulation of CREB activity. Indeed, the transcriptional activity of CREB is controlled at several levels including alternative splicing, post-translational modification, dimerization, specific transcriptional co-activators, non-coding small RNAs, and epigenetic regulation. In this review, we present versatile regulatory modes of CREB family transcription factors and discuss their functional consequences.