A stage—specific protein factor binding to a CACCC motif in both human β—globin gene promoter and 5‘—HS2 region

The DNaseI hypersensitive site 2 (HS2) of human β-globin locus control region(LCR) is required for the high level expression of human β-globin genes.In the present study,a stage-specific protein factor (LPF-β) was identified in the nuclear extract prepared from mouse fetal liver at d 18 of gestation,which could bind to the HS2 region of human β-globin LCR.We also found that the shift band of LPF-β factor could be competed by human β-globin promoter.However,it couldn‘t be competed by human ε-globin promoter or by human ^Aγ-globin promoter.Furthermore,our data demonstrated that the binding-sequence of LPF-β factor is 5‘CACACCCTA 3‘,which is located at the HS2 region of β-LCR(from-10845 to-10853 bp)and human β-globin promoter(from-92 to -84 bp).We speculated that these regions containing the CACCC box in both the human β-globin promoter and HS2 might function as stage selector elements in the regulation of human β-globin switching and the LPF-β factor might be a stage-specific protein factor involved in the regulation of human β-globin gene expression.