Open AccessPromoter elements and transcriptional control of the chicken β tropomycin gene
Author(s) -
Madeleine Toutant,
Cécile Gauthier-Rouvière,
Marc Fiszman,
Marc Lemonnier
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
nucleic acids research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 9.008
H-Index - 537
eISSN - 1362-4954
pISSN - 0305-1048
DOI - 10.1093/nar/22.10.1838
Subject(s) - biology , chloramphenicol acetyltransferase , enhancer , microbiology and biotechnology , reporter gene , transcription (linguistics) , gene , caat box , e box , regulatory sequence , gene expression , regulation of gene expression , promoter , genetics , philosophy , linguistics
The chicken beta tropomyosin (beta TM) gene has two alternative transcription start sites (sk and nmCAP sites) which are used in muscle or non muscle tissues respectively. In order to understand the mechanisms involved in the tissue-specific and developmentally-regulated expression of the beta TM gene, we have analyzed the 5' regions associated with each CAP site. Truncated regions 5' to the nmCAP site were inserted upstream to the bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) reporter gene and these constructs were transfected into avian myogenic and non myogenic cells. The maximum transcription is driven by the CAT construct (-168/ + 216 nt) in all cell types. Previous deletion analysis of the region 5' to the beta TMskCAP site has indicated that 805 nt confer myotube-specific transcription. In this work, we characterized an enhancer element (-201/-68 nt) which contains an E box (-177), a variant CArG box (-104) and a stretch of 7Cs (-147). Mutation of any of these motifs results in a decrease of the myotube-specific transcriptional activity. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays indicate that these cis-acting sequences specifically bind nuclear proteins. This enhancer functions in an orientation-dependent manner.