This is a family of transcription elongation factors which includes those referred to as Bex (brain-expressed X-linked) proteins as well as those named TCEAL (transcription elongation factor A protein-like). Bex proteins are expressed in a wide range of tissues and are known to play a role in neuronal development. They seem to have have distinct roles in cancers []. Bex1 was shown to be a novel link between neurotrophin signalling, the cell cycle, and neuronal differentiation, suggesting it might function by coordinating internal cellular states with the ability of cells to respond to external signals []. TCEAL7 has been shown negatively to regulate the NF-kappaB pathway, hence being important in ovarian cancer as it one of the genes frequently downregulated in this cancer [, ]. Apart from TCEAL7, there are other five members of the TCEAL family, i.e. TCEAL1, TCEAL3, TCEAL4, TCEAL5 and TCEAL8. TCEAL1 was shown involved in the apoptosis of human cancer cells [].
