title: Regulation of the pancreatic islet-specific gene BETA2 (neuroD) by neurogenin 3.
abstract: The BETA2 (neuroD) gene is expressed in endocrine cells during pancreas development and is essential for proper islet morphogenesis. The objective of this study is to identify potential upstream regulators of the BETA2 gene during pancreas development. We demonstrated that the expression of neurogenin 3 (ngn3), an islet- and neuron-specific basic-helix-loop-helix transcription factor, partially overlaps that of BETA2 during early mouse development. More importantly, overexpression of ngn3 can induce the ectopic expression of BETA2 in Xenopus embryos and stimulate the endogenous RNA of BETA2 in endocrine cell lines. Furthermore, overexpression of ngn3 could cause a dose-dependent activation on the 1.0-kb BETA2 promoter in islet-derived cell lines. Deletion and mutation analyses revealed that two proximal E box sequences, E1 and E3, could bind to ngn3-E47 heterodimer and mediate ngn3 activation. Based on these results, we hypothesize that ngn3 is involved in activating the expression of BETA2 at an early stage of islet cell differentiation through the E boxes in the BETA2 promoter.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.
authors.forename: H P
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: El-Hodiri
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jamrich
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Tsai
mesh_terms: D016475:3T3 Cells; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D051792:Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Proteins; D015152:Blotting, Northern; D001921:Brain / Q000196:embryology; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002460:Cell Line; D017353:Gene Deletion; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D010179:Pancreas / Q000196:embryology; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D015854:Up-Regulation; D014981:Xenopus / Q000196:embryology
chemical_list: D051792:Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; C498695:NEUROG3 protein, human; C407737:Neurog3 protein, mouse; C093564:Neurogenic differentiation factor 1