title: BOB.1 of the channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus: not a transcriptional coactivator?
abstract: Expression of the immunoglobulin heavy chain (IGH) locus of the channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) is driven by the Emu3' enhancer, whose core region contains two octamer motifs and a muE5 site. Orthologues of the Oct1 and Oct2 transcription factors have been cloned in the channel catfish and shown to bind to the octamer motifs within the core enhancer. While catfish Oct2 is an activator of transcription, catfish Oct1 failed to drive transcription and may act as a negative regulator of IGH transcription. In mammals, the Oct co-activator BOB.1 (B cell Oct-binding protein1, also known as OCA-B and OBF-1) greatly enhances the transcriptional activity of Oct factors and plays an important role in the development of the immune system. An orthologue of BOB.1 has been cloned in the catfish, and its function characterized. The POU binding domain of the catfish BOB.1 was found to be 95% identical at the amino acid level with the binding domain of human BOB.1, and all the residues directly involved in binding to the Oct-DNA complex were conserved. Despite this conservation, catfish BOB.1 failed to enhance transcriptional activation mediated by endogenous or co-transfected catfish Oct2, and failed to rescue the activity of the inactive catfish Oct1. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays showed that catfish BOB.1 was capable of binding both catfish Oct1 and Oct2 when they formed a complex with the Oct motif. Analysis of recombinant chimeric catfish and human BOB.1 proteins demonstrated that the failure to drive transcription was due to the lack of a functional activation domain within the catfish BOB.1.
authors.affiliation: Marine Biomedicine and Environmental Sciences Center, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425, USA. mrichard@ic.fbi.gov
authors.forename: Mara L Lennard
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Richard
authors.forename: Jun-ichi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hikima
authors.forename: Melanie R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: Norman W
authors.initials: NW
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cunningham
authors.forename: Gregory W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Warr
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000378:metabolism; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D004247:DNA / Q000378:metabolism; D029941:Fish Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D007059:Ictaluridae / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D050810:Octamer Transcription Factors / Q000378:metabolism; D009928:Organ Specificity; D011485:Protein Binding; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D015534:Trans-Activators / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D014158:Transcription, Genetic; D015533:Transcriptional Activation / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D029941:Fish Proteins; D050810:Octamer Transcription Factors; D015534:Trans-Activators; D004247:DNA