What is the difference between a protein and a factor?

Question

In terms of nomenclature/semantics, why are some proteins named proteins, and some named factors?I've been revising on eukaryotic DNA, and I've come across some proteins that seem to serve roughly the same function, but are named differently. For example,- Replication activator *protein*- Replication licensing *factors*- Replication *protein* A- Replication *factor* C- Transcriptional *factor*- Eukaryotic translation initiation *factor*

Answer 1

Transcription factors are a very diverse family of proteins and generally function in multi-subunit protein complexes. They may bind directly to special “promoter” regions of DNA, which lie upstream of the coding region in a gene, or directly to the RNA polymerase molecule.The numeric factor (6.25) by which the nitrogen content of a protein is multiplied to approximate the amount of protein. -- protein+factor">protein factor</a>A high-quality protein is also referred to as a complete protein. ... Amino acids are the building blocks that form protein. Biological Value – Biological value, or BV, measures the quality. When a protein has a high BV this means it contains a sufficient amount of amino acids to form all the proteins your body needs.A licensing factor is a protein or complex of proteins that allows an origin of replication to begin DNA replication at that site. They are thought to primarily occur in eukaryotic cells, since prokaryotes use simpler systems to initiate replication.The replication strategy for each Edge keyspace determines the nodes where replicas are placed. ... A replication factor of one means that there is only one copy of each row in the Cassandra cluster. A replication factor of two means there are two copies of each row, where each copy is on a different node.The replication factor C, or RFC, is a five-subunit protein complex that is required for DNA replication. ... RFC is used in eukaryotic replication as a clamp loader, similar to the γ Complex in Escherichia coli. Its role as clamp loader involves catalysing the loading of PCNA onto DNA..Transcription factors are proteins that help turn specific genes "on" or "off" by binding to nearby DNA..Transcription factors allow cells to perform logic operations and combine different sources of information to "decide" whether to express a gene.In molecular biology, a transcription factor (TF) is a protein that controls the rate of transcription .... In eukaryotes, an important class of transcription factors called general transcription factors (GTFs) are necessary for transcription to occur.