title: Mutational analysis of the human endogenous ERV9 proviruses promoter region.
abstract: ERV9 is a low repeated family of human endogenous retroviral elements whose expression is mainly detectable in undifferentiated embryonal carcinoma NT2/D1 cells. To define all the elements required for the correct transcription activity of the ERV9 promoter and to establish a precise correlation between the elements important for basal transcription, we have systematically analyzed the in vivo and in vitro transcriptional activity of many different ERV9 promoter mutants, including a series of linker-scanning mutations across the promoter region. We report here that the ERV9 promoter contains two elements controlling the selection of the correct start sites, a TATA box and an Inr-like region; the concerted action of both elements is necessary for faithful transcription. Finally, using a series of GAL4 protein fusion constructs in cotransfection experiments, we demonstrated that various transcription factors can synergistically induce a high level of transcription when bound to an ERV9 DNA promoter.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, General and Molecular Biology, University of Naples, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Strazzullo
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Majello
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lania
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: La Mantia
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D018236:Carcinoma, Embryonal; D004252:DNA Mutational Analysis; D015894:Genome, Human; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic / Q000235:genetics*; D011533:Proviruses / Q000235:genetics*; D012190:Retroviridae / Q000235:genetics*; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000494:pharmacology; D014158:Transcription, Genetic; D015533:Transcriptional Activation / Q000187:drug effects; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D014157:Transcription Factors