Evolutionary trends have been examined in 146 HIV-1 forms (2662 copies, 2311 isolates) polymorphic for the TATA box using the "DNA sequence-->affinity for TBP" regression (TBP is the TATA binding protein). As a result, a statistically significant excess of low-affinity TATA box HIV-1 variants corresponding to a low level of both basal and TAT-dependent expression and, consequently, slow replica...

TBP-TFIIA interaction is involved in the potentiation of TATA box-driven promoters. TFIIA activates transcription through stabilization of TATA box-bound TBP. The precursor of TFIIA is subjected to Taspase1-directed processing to generate α and β subunits. Although this processing has been assumed to be required for the promoter activation function of TFIIA, little is known about how the proces...

The TATA-box is one of the most important binding sites in eukaryotic Polymerase II promoters. It is also one of the most common motifs in these promoters. The TATA-box is responsible mainly for the proper localization of the transcription start site (TSS) by the biochemical mechanism of DNA transcription. It also has very regular distances from the TSS. Accurate computational recognition of th...

The TATA-box binding protein (TBP) is required by eukaryotic RNA polymerases for correct transcription initiation. TBP binds to the minor groove of an 8 base pair (bp) DNA-promoter element known as the TATA box and severely bends the TATA box. The promoter-DNA substrate can be damaged by components present in the cell or the environment to produce covalent carcinogen-DNA adducts. These may lead...

Cocrystal structures of wild-type TATA box-binding protein (TBP) recognizing 10 naturally occurring TATA elements have been determined at 2.3-1.8 A resolution, and compared with our 1.9 A resolution structure of TBP bound to the Adenovirus major late promoter (AdMLP) TATA box (5'-TATAAAAG-3'). Minor-groove recognition by the saddle-shaped protein induces the same conformational change in each o...

The herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) glycoprotein C (gC) gene is a true late or gamma 2 gene in that its expression shows a strict requirement for viral DNA replication. Elements required for regulated expression of this gene were previously shown to consist of the gC TATA box, transcription start site and a large portion of the leader sequence of the gC gene. In this paper we show that tran...

It is unclear whether the core promoter is involved in developmental regulation. To address this question, we mutated the TATA box of the human -globin gene, produced transgenic mice, and examined the effect of the mutation during the course of mouse development. In our test system, the -globin gene is expressed at similar levels in the embryonic and adult erythroid cells. The TATA box mutation...

A prototype 13-bp TATA-box sequence, TCACTATATATAG, was mutated at each nucleotide position and examined for its function in the core promoter. Specific nucleotides in the first TATA, the second TATA, as well as the flanking sequences influenced promoter function in transient transformation of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum var Petit Havana) leaves. The effect of a given mutation on reporter gene e...

All of the mammalian ribosomal protein (rp) genes examined to date initiate transcription with high precision despite the fact that they do not contain a well-defined TATA box. The initiation sites are situated within polypyrimidine tracts that are flanked by both upstream and intragenic promoter elements. In the TATA-box region of each rp promoter, there is a functionally critical element with...