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Overproduced p73α activates a minimal promoter through a mechanism independent of its transcriptional activity
Author(s) -
Takagi Shinji,
Ueda Yoshihide,
Hijikata Makoto,
Shimotohno Kunitada
Publication year - 2001
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/s0014-5793(01)03141-6
Subject(s) - transactivation , promoter , rna splicing , alternative splicing , biology , transcription (linguistics) , gene , exon , microbiology and biotechnology , transcription factor , rna , gene expression , genetics , linguistics , philosophy
p73, the gene for a protein related to the tumor suppressor p53, encodes several variants which bear distinct carboxy‐terminal structures as a result of alternative splicing. We and others showed that these splicing variants have different transcriptional effects on promoters with a p53‐binding consensus sequence (p53BCS). Here we show that when transiently overexpressed, p73α but not p73β activated several minimal promoters without the p53BCS, while p73γ and p73ϵ activated them to a much lesser extent than p73α, and p53 suppressed the promoters without p53BCS as reported previously. Moreover, the results of RNase protection and RNA transfection assays suggested that this activation occurred at the transcriptional level. Deletion analysis of p73α revealed that the transactivation domain of p73 was not involved in this activity and the C‐terminal region of p73α which is a specific structure of this variant was essential, suggesting that this phenomenon occurs independent of the transactivation activity of p73α and that the C‐terminal extension of p73α may affect the basal level of transcription.