Involvement of the Pituitary-Specific Transcription Factor Pit-1 in Somatolactotrope Cell Growth and Death: An Approach Using Dominant-Negative Pit-1 Mutants

Regulation of Pituitary Genes by the Transcription Factor, Pit-1, in the Domestic Turkey

Cloning of the human cDNA for transcription factor Pit-1.

The mammalian pit-1 gene encodes a 33 kd transcription factor (1,2) expressed in a subset of endocrine cells of the anterior pituitary (3). Pit-1 is structurally related to the POU family of transcriptional regulators (4), containing a characteristic POU domain divided into two regions, the POU-specific and homeo subdomains. Located in the C-terminal half of the protein, the POU domain is criti...

The pituitary-specific transcription factor, Pit-1, can direct changes in the chromatin structure of the prolactin promoter.

The chromatin structure of a promoter is an important determinant of its transcriptional activity. Many promoters are assembled into repressive polynucleosomal arrays that are subsequently remodeled to allow for the activation of gene expression. This study addresses the contribution of a single transcription factor, Pit-1, in orchestrating the chromatin structure of the prolactin gene. Utilizi...

Ribozymes acting against the transcription factor Pit-1.

Ribozymes are a group of RNA molecules which possess the catalytic activity to cleave and/or ligate RNA molecules. They are found in such diverse situations as group I and I1 introns, virusoid genomes and satellite RNAs of a number of viruses. Most characterised ribozymes perform intramolecular catalysis but a few carry out intermolecular catalysis. The ribozymes described here follow the model...

Pituitary-specific expression and Pit-1 regulation of the rat growth hormone-releasing hormone receptor gene.

The GHRH receptor is expressed in the somatotroph cell of the anterior pituitary, where it functions to mediate GHRH-stimulated GH release. To study pituitary and somatotroph cell-specific expression of this gene, a transgenic mouse model and complementary cell culture experiments were developed. The activity of the 1.6-kb proximal rat GHRH receptor promoter was examined in vivo by generating t...