Luman/CREB3 (also called LZIP) is an endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-bound cellular transcription factor. It has been implicated in the mammalian unfolded protein response (UPR), as well as herpes simplex virus reactivation from latency in sensory neurons. Here, we report the identification of a novel Luman recruitment factor (LRF). Like Luman, LRF is a UPR-responsive basic-region leucine zipper protein that is prone to proteasomal degradation. Being a highly unstable protein, LRF interacts with Luman through the leucine zipper region and promotes Luman degradation. LRF was found to recruit the nuclear form of Luman to discrete nuclear foci, which overlap with the nuclear receptor coactivator GRIP1 bodies, and repress the transactivation activity of Luman. Compared to LRF ؉/؉ mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) cells, the levels of CHOP, EDEM, and Herp were elevated in LRF ؊/؊ MEF cells. We propose that LRF is a negative regulator of the UPR. For Luman, it may represent another level of regulation following Luman proteolytic cleavage on the ER and nuclear translocation. In addition to inducing rapid Luman turnover, LRF may repress the transactivation potential of Luman by sequestering it in the LRF nuclear bodies away from key cofactors (such as HCF-1) that are required for transcriptional activation.The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response (or unfolded protein response [UPR]) is a series of well-orchestrated cellular events to restore homeostasis in the perturbed ER. During the UPR, ER-resident molecular chaperones and foldases are induced, and translation is attenuated to reduce the load on the ER (reviewed in references 2, 49, 51, 67, 84, and 88). Unfolded proteins can also be targeted by ubiquitination for degradation by the proteasome, which is termed ER-associated degradation (ERAD) (35,60,70). Apoptosis occurs when all of these remedies have failed (16,48,63,64). Current studies of the UPR mechanism in mammalian cells have identified three signaling arms represented by three ER membrane-bound proteins, PERK (PKR-like ER kinase) (14-18), ATF6␣/ (19,20,75,76,92,93), and IRE1 (6,39,78,91). The activation of PERK by ER stress leads to global translational repression but selective activation of ATF4, whose downstream targets include metabolic genes and apoptosis-related CHOP (14,26,41,55,66,80). ATF6 is an ER membranebound basic-region leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factor that is activated by the regulated intramembrane proteolysis (RIP) mechanism (5). When ATF6 cleavage is triggered by ER stress (23,87,92,93), the N terminus that encodes the transcription activation domain and the bZIP region translocates to the nucleus to activate downstream genes, such as ER chaperone BiP/GRP78 and GRP94, through the ER stress response element (ERSE) (65,68,82,89,92,93). Activated IRE1 initiates spliceosome-independent alternative splicing of XBP1u mRNA, resulting in a potent bZIP transcription factor XBP1s (6,39,59,69,91). Like ATF6, XBP1s activates ER chaperone genes via an ERSE (91), but it also activates transcript...