The potato proteinase inhibitor II promoter was studied to identify cis-acting regulatory sequences involved in methyl jasmonate (MJ) response using transgenic tobacco plants carrying various lengths of the promoter fused to a chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter gene. An internal fragment between -625 and -520 was sufficient to confer a response to MJ, wounding, or sucrose when it was pl...

A variety of cytokines induce the tyrosine phosphorylation of signal transducers and activators of transcription (STATs). Activation of the same STAT proteins by distinct cytokines and activation of different STAT proteins by each cytokine are thought to contribute to redundancy and pleiotropy of cytokine actions respectively. STAT3 is rapidly tyrosine phosphorylated in response to IL-6, ciliar...

The human monoamine oxidase (MAO) B plays a major role in the degradation of biogenic and dietary amines such as phenylethylamine, benzylamine, dopamine, and tyramine. We previously showed that the -246/-99 MAO B promoter region exhibited the highest activity and contained two clusters of overlapping Sp1 sites, a CACCC element and a TATA box. Here, using a series of 10 deletion constructs of th...

The role of estrogens in the development and physiology of the male reproductive tract remains provocative, with a growing body of evidence suggesting that estrogens are able to influence normal testis development and physiology, through their classical receptors, estrogen receptor (ER)-alpha and ER-beta. We describe the identification and characterization of a new promoter that is involved in ...

To understand the mechanism of transcriptional regulation, it is essential to identify and characterize the promoter, which is located proximal to the mRNA start site. To identify the promoters from the large volumes of genomic sequences, we used mRNA start sites determined by a large-scale sequencing of the cDNA libraries constructed by the "oligo-capping" method. We aligned the mRNA start sit...

We studied the 5' untranslated regions (UTRs) of the mouse lymphocyte pore-forming protein (PFP, perforin, and cytolysin) . 5' UTRs were determined by primer extension analysis, sequencing PFP cDNA clone PFR7, ribonuclease protection assays, and amplification of poly(A)+ RNA of cytolytic T lymphocyte using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) . Two alternatively spliced 5' UTRs, designated type I an...

We studied the 5' untranslated regions (UTRs) of the mouse lymphocyte pore-forming protein (PFP, perforin, and cytolysin). 5' UTRs were determined by primer extension analysis, sequencing PFP cDNA clone PFP-7, ribonuclease protection assays, and amplification of poly(A)+ RNA of cytolytic T lymphocyte using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Two alternatively spliced 5' UTRs, designated type I and...

Proper growth and development of multicellular organisms requires precise regulation of developmental genes. One aspect of this regulation is at the level of transcription from the gene promoters. As an initial approach to understanding the regulation of the Pax-6 gene, which plays an important role in eye development and perhaps in other developmental processes, we characterized a promoter reg...

Apelin, a peptide widely expressed in the body, is the endogenous ligand for the APJ receptor. To investigate how the apelin gene is regulated transcriptionally, we cloned and characterized approximately 3000 and approximately 4000 bp 5'-upstream fragments of the rat and human apelin genes. Putative CAAT-like box, but not TATA-box sites were identified. The rat (-207/-1 bp) and human (-100/+74 ...

Transcriptional control in myelinating glia is often described in terms of a handful of trans-acting proteins with preferential expression in these cells. An equally valid approach is the identification of cis-acting elements in genes, which are specifically transcribed in myelinating glia. Regulatory regions of several myelin genes have been analyzed in transgenic animals, transient transfecti...