6 exons; 50 kb

alternate splicing at cDNA positions 495 (in exon 5) and 526

2 alternative forms of 182 and 187 amino acids with the first 165 N-term identical amino acids and different C-term; 22 kDa

wide

cytoplasmic when not dimerized

CBF is a heterodimer comprising the subunit b (CBFb) and the subunit CBFa (3 CBFa genes are known, of which is CBFa2, also called AML1, involved in the well known t(8;21), t(12;21), and in other leukaemias); CBF binds to a core motif of the DNA (herein the name); CBFb by itself does not contain any known DNA binding motif or any transcriptional activation domain; CBFa binds to DNA; CBFb increases CBFas affinity to DNA by 5 to 10 fold; CBF is a transcription factor which regulates the expression of myeloid and T-cell specific genes such as: GM-CSF, M-CSFR, IL3, T- Cell receptors TCRA-D, TCRB and TCRG; CBF cooperate with various tissue specific factors to activate these lineage-restricted transcriptions; homozygous knock down of either CBFb or CBFa results in embryonic lethality, showing that they are essential for fetal liver hematopoiesis

highly conserved through the species