The central RNA polymerase III (Pol III) transcription factor TFIIIB is composed of the TATA-binding protein (TBP), Brf, a protein related to TFIIB, and the product of the newly cloned TFC5 gene. TFIIIB assembles autonomously on the upstream promoter of the yeast U6 snRNA (SNR6) gene in vitro, through the interaction of its TBP subunit with a consensus TATA box located at base pair -30. As both...

In melanocytes and in melanoma cells, upregulation of melanogenesis, by cAMP elevating agents, results from a stimulation of tyrosinase activity that has been ascribed to an increase in tyrosinase protein and messenger amount. However, the mechanism by which cAMP elevating agents increase tyrosinase mRNA remains to be elucidated. In this study, using a luciferase reporter plasmid containing the...

A recent study revealed that TATA boxes and initiator sequences have a common anomalous mechanical property, i.e. they comprise distinctive flexible and rigid sequences when compared with the other parts of the promoter region. In the present study, using the flexibility parameters from two different models, we calculated the average flexibility profiles of 1004 human promoters that do not cont...

Human U6 small nuclear RNA (snRNA) gene transcription by RNA polymerase III requires cooperative promoter binding involving the snRNA-activating protein complex (SNAP(c)) and the TATA-box binding protein (TBP). To investigate the role of SNAP(c) for TBP function at U6 promoters, TBP recruitment assays were performed using full-length TBP and a mini-SNAP(c) containing SNAP43, SNAP50, and a trunc...

Functional transcription initiation complexes can be assembled in vitro without the aid of regulatory factors that bind to upstream activating sequences. However, promoters that lack upstream activating sequences are transcribed poorly if at all in vivo, suggesting that regulatory factors are necessary for the assembly of transcription initiation complexes in cells. To test this possibility, we...

The developmentally regulated mammalian beta-globin genes are activated by a distant locus control region/enhancer. To understand the role of chromatin remodeling complexes in this activation, we used stably replicated chromatin templates, in which transcription activation of the human embryonic epsilon-globin gene depends on the tandem Maf-recognition elements (MAREs) within the beta-globin lo...

The CCAAT box is one of the most common elements in eukaryotic promoters, found in the forward or reverse orientation. Among the various DNA binding proteins that interact with this sequence, only NF-Y (CBF, HAP2/3/4/5) has been shown to absolutely require all 5 nt. Analysis of a database with 178 bona fide NF-Y binding sites in 96 unrelated promoters confirms this need and points to specific a...

The functional architecture of the proximal region of a rice phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) promoter was analyzed by transcription of PAL-beta-glucuronidase (GUS) templates by whole-cell extracts of rice cell suspension cultures. The promoter 5' truncated to position -35 was sufficient for accurate initiation of basal transcription. Substitution of the TATTTAA sequence between positions -35 ...

Promoters play a central role in gene regulation, yet our power to discriminate them from non-promoter sequences in higher eukaryotes is mainly restricted to those associated with CpG islands. Here, we examined in silico the promoters of 30,954 human and 18,083 mouse transcripts in the DBTSS database, to assess the impact of particular sequence and structural features (propeller twist, bendabil...