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Characterization of the promoters of the guinea pig neutrophil cationic peptide‐1 and ‐2 genes
Author(s) -
Nagaoka Isao,
Ishihara Noriko,
Yamashita Tatsuhisa
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/0014-5793(94)01229-6
Subject(s) - promoter , gene , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , exon , reporter gene , transcription (linguistics) , homologous chromosome , genetics , gene expression , linguistics , philosophy
Guinea pig neutrophils contain the antimicrobial cationic peptides GNCP‐1 and GNCP‐2 in the granules. To understand the regulation of the gene expression, the promoters for the GNCP‐1 and GNCP‐2 genes were characterized. Sequencing analysis of the genomic clones showed that the nucleotide sequences of the 5′‐upstream regions (1.7 kb) from exon 1 were homologous (90–93%) between the GNCP‐1 and GNCP‐2 genes. However, transient transfection assays using luciferase reporter gene constructs revealed that the promoter activity of GNCP‐1 was 2‐fold greater than that of GNCP‐2. Furthermore, DNase I footprint analysis demonstrated that three regions (I, II and III) were protected on the GNCP‐1 promoter, whereas only two protected regions (II and III) were identified on the GNCP‐2 promoter. Together these observations indicate that GNCP‐1 and GNCP‐2 are encoded by homologous genes, but the expression of the GNCP‐1 and GNCP‐2 genes is likely to be different at the level of transcription.