Transcription of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae his3 gene requires an upstream promoter element and a TATA element. A strain containing his3-delta 13, an allele which deletes the upstream promoter element but contains the TATA box and intact structural gene, fails to express the gene and consequently is unable to grow in medium lacking histidine. In this paper we characterize His+ revertants of h...

Steroidogenic factor 1 (SF-1) is a transcription factor shown to be critical for regulation of adrenal and gonadal development and function. To dissect the mechanisms that direct expression of this regulator, we have studied the promoter of the SF-1 gene and have identified cis-acting elements that recognize a basic-helix-loop-helix transcription factor; the CAAT binding factor; and Sp1. We dem...

During productive infection, human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) UL44 transcription initiates at three distinct start sites that are differentially regulated. Two of the start sites, the distal and the proximal, are active at early times, whereas the middle start site is active only at late times after infection. The UL44 early viral gene product is essential for viral DNA synthesis. The UL44 gene pro...

The TATA-binding protein (TBP) in the TFIID complex binds specifically to the TATA-box to initiate the stepwise assembly of the preinitiation complex (PIC) for RNA polymerase II transcription. Transcriptional activators and repressors compete with general transcription factors at each step to influence the course of the assembly. To investigate this process, the TBP.TATA complex was titrated wi...

Increased prostaglandin H synthase-2 (PGHS-2) expression in the amnion is critical for the production of prostaglandins that induce labour. The aim of the present investigation was to determine whether PGHS-2 gene activity is controlled by NFkappaB transcription factors in term amnion in vivo as suggested by in vitro findings. Amnion membranes were collected after elective Caesarean section (n ...

The herpes simplex virus (HSV) regulatory protein, infected-cell polypeptide 4 (ICP4), represses the transcription of promoters that have binding sites for ICP4 located near the transcription start site. It also been shown that ICP4 binds such promoter DNA cooperatively with the TATA-binding protein (TBP) and TFIIB to form a tripartite protein-DNA complex (C. Smith, P. Bates, R. Rivera-Gonzales...

Transcription from the core promoter of the juvenile hormone esterase gene (-61 to +28) requires the presence of both an AT-rich motif (TATA box) and an initiator motif for any transcription to occur, when assayed by either transcription in vitro with lepidopteran Sf9 nuclear extracts or by transient-transfection assay in Sf9 cells. Additional gel-shift experiments indicated that at least one a...

Promoter activity of the Campoletis sonorensis polydnavirus (CsPDV) WHv1.6 gene was analysed by transient transfection assays in insect cell culture using constructs expressing the CAT gene. Deletions of the WHv1.6 gene promoter were used to define promoter regions important for expression. Progressive deletion of the regions upstream of the TATA box reduced the promoter activity, whereas delet...

In this research, we synthesized a novel DNA-polymer conjugate and evaluated its application to an affinity precipitation separation of TATA-box binding protein (TBP), which is a representative general transcription factor. The conjugate was composed of two fractions. One was a double-stranded DNA modified by the grafting of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm), which is known as a thermosensi...

Cell-to-cell variation in gene expression levels (noise) generates phenotypic diversity and is an important phenomenon in evolution, development and disease. TATA-box binding protein (TBP) is an essential factor that is required at virtually every eukaryotic promoter to initiate transcription. While the presence of a TATA-box motif in the promoter has been strongly linked with noise, the molecu...