Abstract
Purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP) is a ubiquitously expressed enzyme which contributes to the catabollsm and recycling of nucleotides. To characterize the promoter region of the human PNP gene, the nucleotide sequence from a BamHI site located in the 5′ untranslated region extending 2237 bp upstream to an Xbal site was determined. The transcriptional start site as determined by primer extension was 119 bp upstream of the coding sequence and consisted of a 5′-CA-3′ dimer with A at +1. A TATA box was identified -24 to -29 bp upstream of the transcriptional start site. A CCAAT pentamer sequence in the Inverted orientation was present at -51 to -55 bp and two GC rich regions were identified at -68 to -81 bp and -168 to -187 bp. Progressive 5′ deletions of the 5′ flanking region were fused to the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) reporter gene and transient expression measured after transfection of murine NIH/3T3 flbroblasts. A 91 bp promoter (the shortest tested) provided CAT activity at 60% the level of a 216 bp promoter, possibly due to removal of the GC rich region between -168 and -187 bp. Longer promoters resulted in CAT expression at similar or lower levels than the 216 bp promoter indicating that this region contained all of the 5′ flanking sequences affecting transcription from the PNP promoter.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 5015-5020 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Nucleic acids research |
Volume | 19 |
Issue number | 18 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1 1991 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Cori Gorman for providing the pCAT3M plasmid and Howard Towle for providing the pCAT(An) plasmid. Sequence analysis was provided by the Molecular Biology Computer Facility, College of Biological Sciences, University of Minnesota. This work was supported by grant A127416 from the National Institutes of Health and Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Award No. 5-692 from the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation to RSM. JJJ received stipend from Bergthora Magnusdottir and Jakob Bjarnason Cancer Research Fund and a NATO science fellowship.