title: Characterization of the human and mouse Fli-1 promoter regions.
abstract: Overexpression of the Fli-1 gene has been shown to be involved in retrovirus-induced mouse tumors. Cloning of the 5' flanking sequence of the mouse and human Fli-1 exon 1 was performed. At least two major transcription initiation sites were localized respectively at 143 and 114 nucleotides upstream of the previously defined mouse Fli-1 cDNA 5' end. The sequences flanking the CAP sites show good conservation between human and mouse (94%). The promoter region contains a potential TATA box lying 30 bp from one of the major identified CAP sites. Several conserved elements, such as GATA, EBS, GC rich, AP-2, AP-3 elements and a repetition of GA were observed next to the two major CAP sites. Furthermore, this latter was shown to form a H-DNA structure in vitro by S1 nuclease sensitivity experiments. The highly conserved 5' non-translated region of exon 1 is predicted to form a very stable hairpin structure which could regulate the Fli-1 expression at the post-transcriptional level. In Cas-Br-E-induced tumors, all the proviruses are found clustered within 35 nucleotides directly upstream the Fli-1 ATG start codon, thus deleting the hairpin structure from the transcript. Promoter activity was tested using the CAT reporter gene transfected in mouse and human erythroid cell lines. No promoter activity could be detected with various mouse Fli-1 promoter-CAT constructs containing 600 bp of the 5' flanking region, the complete exon 1, the 5' end of intron 1 and/or retroviral LTR sequence. Constructions of the human homologue containing nearly 1.5 kbp of Fli-1 5' flanking region was also inactive in transfected cells. These results suggest that multiple levels of regulation might control the Fli-1 expression.
authors.affiliation: Département des Sciences Biologiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Barbeau
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bergeron
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Beaulieu
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Nadjem
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rassart
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D004274:DNA, Recombinant; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D005091:Exons; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D051789:Proto-Oncogene Protein c-fli-1; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; D012045:Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D015719:Single-Strand Specific DNA and RNA Endonucleases / Q000378:metabolism; D015534:Trans-Activators / Q000235:genetics*; D014158:Transcription, Genetic; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D018076:DNA, Complementary; D004274:DNA, Recombinant; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; C497426:Fli1 protein, mouse; D051789:Proto-Oncogene Protein c-fli-1; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; D015534:Trans-Activators; D015719:Single-Strand Specific DNA and RNA Endonucleases