Variant forms of upstream stimulatory factors (USFs) control the promoter activity of hTERT, the human gene encoding the catalytic subunit of telomerase

FEBS Letters

Fujita, Toshiro¹  Yago, Masako²  Hatakeyama, Shinji²  Ohki, Rieko²  Ishikawa, Fuyuki² 

[1] Department of Nephrology and Endocrinology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan;Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Assembly, Department of Biological Information, Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259 Nagatsuta, Midori-ku, Yokohama 226-8501, Japan

关键词: Telomerase;    Telomerase reverse transcriptase;    Promoter;    Upstream stimulatory factor;    Mini-upstream stimulatory factor;   

DOI  :  10.1016/S0014-5793(02)02757-6

学科分类：生物化学/生物物理

来源: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

【 摘 要 】

It is known that Myc regulates the expression of TERT, the telomerase catalytic subunit gene, by binding to E box. Here we show that another E box-binding protein, upstream stimulatory factor (USF), also regulates TERT expression. Specifically, the N-terminally truncated form of USF2 is present in telomerase-negative/resting human lymphocytes, but not in telomerase-positive/phytohemagglutinin-activated lymphocytes. In electrophoretic mobility shift assay, both full-length and truncated USF2s bound to the TERT E box. In a transient expression assay, the truncated USF had a dominant-negative effect on both exogenous full-length USF and endogenous positive regulators for activating TERT expression. These results suggest that the differential abundance of truncated USF2 may regulate telomerase activity during lymphocyte activation.

【 授权许可】

Unknown