Regulated expression of chimaeric genes containing the 5''-flanking regions of human growth hormone-related genes in transiently transfected rat anterior pituitary tumor cells.

The expression and hormonal regulation of chimaeric genes containing the 5'-flanking regions of the normal human growth hormone (hGH-1), the variant hGH (hGH-2) and chorionic somatomammotropin (hCS-1) genes fused to the chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (CAT) gene has been examined after transient transfection into cultured rat pituitary (GC), and non-pituitary (HeLa and Rat 2) tumor cells. As assessed by levels of CAT activity, the hGH-1 and hCS-1 gene hybrids were expressed at 5- to 25-fold higher levels in GC cells than in HeLa or Rat 2 cells. The hGH-2 gene hybrid was expressed at very low levels in all 3 cell types. Triiodothyronine treatment of transiently transfected GC cells had little effect on CAT activity from the hGH-1 gene hybrid but increased CAT activity from the hCS-1 gene hybrid. A slight but significant increase in CAT expression was detected with both genes after dexamethasone treatment. The data indicate that elements present on the hGH-1 and hCS-1 genes' 5'-flanking DNA are required for the efficient expression of these genes in GC cells.     

Extinction of alpha-fetoprotein gene expression in somatic cell hybrids involves cis-acting DNA elements.

alpha-Fetoprotein (AFP), a liver-specific protein, is extinguished in somatic cell hybrids formed by the fusion of mouse hepatoma cells (BWTG3) with rat fibroblast cells (JF1). Our studies show that the extinction of mouse AFP expression in these somatic cell hybrids may involve at least two cis-acting regulatory domains, i.e., the enhancer elements and a tissue-specific promoter region, which are located in the 5'-flanking region of the AFP gene.     

Structure and myofiber-specific expression of the rat muscle regulatory gene MRF4.

We have cloned an 11.3-kb rat genomic DNA fragment encompassing the muscle regulatory factor 4 (MRF4) protein-coding sequence, 8.5 kb of 5'-flanking sequence, and 1.0 kb of 3'-flanking sequence. In order to study MRF4 gene expression, the rat myogenic cell line, L6J1-C, which expresses the endogenous MRF4 gene only in differentiated myofibers, was transfected stably with the full-length genomic clone and various 5' deletions. RNase protection assays demonstrated that MRF4 genes containing as little as 430 bp of 5'-flanking sequence exhibited an increase in expression as the cells differentiated into myofibers, indicating that elements responsible for fiber-specific expression are contained within this cloned DNA fragment. Similar up-regulation was observed with genes containing 1.5 kb of 5'-flanking sequence. Interestingly, MRF4 genes containing 5.0 kb and 8.5 kb of 5'-flanking sequence were up-regulated to even higher levels, suggesting that additional myofiber-specific regulatory elements located between 1.5 and 5.0 kb upstream from the coding region play a role in regulating the expression of this muscle-specific gene.     

Structural and functional characterization of the 5'-flanking region of the rat and human cytochrome P450 2E1 genes: identification of a polymorphic repeat in the human gene.

Cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1) is a toxicologically very important enzyme with a high extent of interindividual variability in expression. We sequenced and characterized the 5'-flanking region of the human and rat CYP2E1 genes. The identity between the human and rat sequences (-3.8 kb to +1 kb) was generally between 35 and 60%, and the most similar regions were found in the proximal part of the sequence. Two more distant regions at -1.6 to -2.0 kb and -2.5 to -2. 8 kb in the human sequence were also found to have high identity to the rat sequence. A polymorphic repeat sequence in the human gene was found between -2178 to -1945 bp. The common allele (CYP2E1*1C) contained 6 repeats (each 42-60 bp long) and the rare allele (CYP2E1*1D) had 8 repeats with an allele frequency of 1% among Caucasians and 23% among Chinese. The CYP2E1 5'-flanking regions of the human (-3712 bp to +10 bp) and rat (-3685 bp to +28 bp) genes were ligated in front of a luciferase reporter gene and transfected into rat hepatoma Fao and human hepatoma B16A2 cells. Important species specificity was noted in the control of gene expression and regions of negative and positive cis-acting elements were localized. No difference was seen in the constitutive expression between the two polymorphic forms. The importance of this repeat polymorphism for high and low inducible CYP2E1 phenotypes is discussed.