Human placental alkaline phosphatase as a histochemical marker of gene expression in transgenic mice

The human placental alkaline phosphatase (PLAP) gene was analysed for its utility as a histochemically detectable reporter gene in transgenic mice. A reporter gene was made by linking the PLAP structural gene to an enhancerpromoter element from the human -actin gene. This gene was inserted into the mouse genome by transfection of embryonic stem cells, and by microinjection of fertilized eggs. Histochemical staining showed that the transgene was uniformly expressed in four of four stable ES cell lines, and in all ten tissues examined from adult animals from five lines of transgenic mice. Non-transgenic cells did not stain. These results suggest that the human PLAP gene will be of utility in studies requiring phenotypic marking of cells in tissues of mice.     

The phosphotyrosyl phosphatase activator gene is a novel p53 target gene

The minimal promoter of the phosphotyrosyl phosphatase activator (PTPA) gene, encoding a regulator of protein phosphatase 2A contains two yin-yang 1 (YY1)-binding sites, positively regulating promoter activity. We now describe a role for p53 in the regulation of PTPA expression. Luciferase reporter assays in Saos-2 cells revealed that p53 could down-regulate PTPA promoter activity in a dose-dependent manner, whereas four different p53 mutants could not. The p53-responsive region mapped to the minimal promoter. Overexpression of YY1 reverses the repressive effect of p53, suggesting a functional antagonism between p53 and YY1. The latter does not involve competition for YY1 binding, but rather direct control of YY1 function. Inhibition of PTPA expression by endogenous p53 was demonstrated in UVB-irradiated HepG2 cells, both on the mRNA and protein level. Also basal PTPA levels are higher in p53-negative (Saos-2) versus p53-positive (HepG2, U2OS) cells, suggesting "latent" p53 can control PTPA expression as well. The higher PTPA levels in U2OS cells, programmed to overexpress constitutively a dominant-negative p53 mutant, corroborate this finding. Thus, PTPA expression is negatively regulated by p53 in normal conditions and in conditions where p53 is up-regulated, via an as yet unknown mechanism involving the negative control of YY1.     

Isozymes of bovine intestinal alkaline phosphatase

Alkaline phosphatases from calf and bovine small intestines have been isolated in homogeneous form from both mucosa and luminal contents. The detergent-solubilized calf enzyme resolves into two peaks of activity, C-1 and C-2, on chromatofocusing. Only one of these activity peaks is present in the enzyme from the adult animal. Amino acid compositions, N-terminal sequences, and tryptic peptide maps show that C-1 and C-2 are isozymes of differing primary structure and that the adult form of the enzyme is identical to C-2. The developmentally controlled expression of the two isozymes reported here suggests a molecular basis for the previous indications that functional changes in intestinal alkaline phosphatase occur with tissue maturation. The sugar composition of the carbohydrate chains of these isozymes has been determined and enzymatic deglycosylation with endo-beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase-F indicates two N-linked and one or more O-linked glycoconjugates/monomer.