Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:2.3.1.28 (chloramphenicol acetyltransferase)
 5,100 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Although tumor necrosis factor (TNF) is a major mediator of endotoxic shock, the normal function of TNF that has preserved this protein throughout mammalian evolution remains unknown. If the protein serves a role in normal development or homeostasis, it must be produced under physiologic conditions. To determine whether TNF secretion occurs in normal animals, and to define the tissue sources of the protein, we prepared a reporter construct in which the TNF coding sequence and introns are replaced by the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) coding sequence. This construct was inserted into the murine genome, yielding 13 transgenic founders. Macrophages harvested from 4 of the transgenic lines expressed CAT activity after stimulation with Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide in vitro. Each of these 4 transgenic lines also constitutively expressed CAT activity in the thymus but in no other tissue examined. Cultured thymocytes secrete TNF, as demonstrated both by cytotoxicity assays and by immunoprecipitation of radiolabeled thymic culture medium. CAT activity was associated with the thymic lymphocyte population and not with thymic macrophages or dendritic cells. CAT activity was present in thymic lymphocytes irrespective of CD4 or CD8 expression; T cells from the spleen, however, had no detectable CAT activity. The biosynthesis of TNF in the thymus of normal animals implies a role for this protein in the development or regulation of the immune response.
 ...
PMID:Constitutive synthesis of tumor necrosis factor in the thymus. 159 85

In order to investigate the effect of CD4 engagement on the transforming growth factor beta1 (TGF-beta1) promoter activity in haemopoietic progenitors, HEL cells were transiently transfected with a plasmid vector containing -453/+11 nucleotides of the TGF-beta1 promoter fused with the bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene and then treated with various agonists. Both cross-linked CD4mAb and envelope gp120 were able to significantly up-regulate CAT activity with respect to the levels of activation observed in HEL cells treated with cross-linked CD8 mAb or p24. By using deletion mutants of the TGFbeta1 promoter, we found that the minimal DNA sequence still responsive to cross-linked CD4 mAb or gp120 was located between nucleotides -453/-323 of the TGF-beta1 promoter, which contains two activating protein 1 (AP1) binding sites. In electromobility shift assays (EMSA) we could demonstrate that CD4 engagement of HEL cells induced a significant increase of AP1 binding activity at the nuclear level. Furthermore, the steady-state mRNA of endogenous TGF-beta1 showed a small but reproducible increase when HEL cells were treated with cross-linked CD4mAb or gp120. Altogether, these findings suggest that the engagement of CD4 in HEL cells modulates TGF-beta1 expression, acting predominantly at the transcriptional level.
 ...
PMID:The engagement of CD4 surface antigen in the HEL haemopoietic cell line up-regulates the transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) promoter activity. 920 2