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

Many eucaryotic promoters contain multiple binding sites for sequence-specific DNA-binding proteins. In some cases, these proteins have been shown to interact synergistically to activate transcription. In this study, we address the possibility that the transcription factor Sp1 can synergistically activate a native human promoter in a cellular context that closely resembles that of a single-copy gene. Using DNase I footprinting with affinity-purified Sp1, we show that the human argininosuccinate synthetase (AS) promoter contains three sites that bind Sp1 with different affinities. These binding sites were mutated to abolish Sp1 binding, individually and in all possible combinations, to generate a series of AS promoter-chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) expression constructs. Mutations designed to increase Sp1 binding were also introduced at each site. The in vivo transcriptional activity of these mutant AS promoter-CAT constructs was then measured in stably transfected human RPMI 2650 cell lines. Our results show that each of the three Sp1-binding sites contributes to full activation of the human AS promoter and that the relative contribution of each site correlates well with its in vitro affinity for Sp1. More importantly, we find that the three Sp1-binding sites when present in the same promoter activate transcription to a level that is 8 times greater than would be expected given their individual activities in the absence of the other two sites. Thus, we provide direct evidence that Sp1-binding sites in their native context in a human promoter can interact synergistically in vivo to activate transcription. The ability to activate transcription synergistically may be the reason that many cellular promoters have multiple Sp1-binding sites arranged in tandem and in close proximity.
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PMID:Synergistic activation of a human promoter in vivo by transcription factor Sp1. 200 89

The human argininosuccinate synthetase locus is subject to metabolite-mediated repression by arginine in some cultured cell lines. To gain insight into the mechanism underlying this regulation, chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) minigenes under the transcriptional control of the human argininosuccinate synthetase promoter were constructed and tested for regulation. When the minigenes were introduced into RPMI 2650 cells, a human cell line that shows sixfold regulation of the argininosuccinate synthetase gene, CAT expression was repressed three- to fivefold when arginine was present in the culture medium. A minigene containing only 149 base pairs of 5'-flanking sequence was expressed at similar levels and regulated to the same degree as one having approximately 3 kilobases of 5'-flanking sequence. Therefore, the cis-acting sequences required for the arginine-mediated repression are likely to be located within the region of the transcription initiation site. The arginine-mediated repression of the CAT minigenes was not observed in canavanine-resistant variants of RPMI 2650 cells, and therefore they showed the appropriate cell-type specificity. Cultured cells having 200-fold-increased levels of argininosuccinate synthetase can be selected by growth in medium containing the arginine analog canavanine. It was previously demonstrated that the increased expression of argininosuccinate synthetase in canavanine-resistant human lymphoblasts was due to a trans-acting mechanism. To gain further support for a trans-acting mechanism, we tested our CAT minigenes for the trans induction in canavanine-resistant variants of RPMI 2650 cells. Transfection of the CAT minigenes into RPMI 2650 cells and canavanine-resistant variants of this cell line yielded no difference in transient CAT expression. Furthermore, cloned canavanine-resistant variant cells having integrated copies of the CAT minigenes expressed CAT at similar levels as compared to the parental cell lines. Since these cell lines do exhibit arginine-mediated repression of CAT but not trans induction, these data indicate that the argine-mediated repression is a regulatory event that occurs independently of the trans induction.
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PMID:Human argininosuccinate synthetase minigenes are subject to arginine-mediated repression but not to trans induction. 378 62

Regulation of argininosuccinate synthetase (AS) was studied by using minigenes containing 3 kilobases of DNA upstream from the TATAA box and 9 kilobases downstream (including the first four exons of the AS gene) ligated to either the cDNA for AS or to the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene. Unlike the endogenous AS gene, expression of the CAT minigene was not elevated in Canr1 cells, which overproduce AS compared with parental RPMI-2650 cells. Expression of the CAT minigene in both stable and transient analyses was four- to five-fold higher in RPMI-2650 cells grown in citrulline medium than in cells grown in arginine medium. Although endogenous AS activity is not subject to metabolite regulation in Canr1 cells and expression of the CAT minigene in Canr1 cells was not increased when cells were grown in citrulline medium, expression of the CAT minigene was 10- to 22-fold greater when intracellular arginine pools were depleted by transient starvation for arginine and citrulline.
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PMID:Arginine-mediated regulation of an argininosuccinate synthetase minigene in normal and canavanine-resistant human cells. 378 95