Adiponectin (ApN) has several protective effects against diabetes and atherosclerosis. However, the detailed mechanisms of the regulation of the ApN gene have not yet been clarified. Prolactin regulatory element-binding (PREB) protein has been identified as a factor that regulates insulin gene expression in the pancreas. PREB is located not only in the pancreas but also in adipose tissue; howev...

Phytoplasmas (class, Mollicutes) are insect-transmissible and plant-pathogenic bacteria that multiply intracellularly in both plants and insects through host switching. Our previous study revealed that phytoplasmal sigma factor rpoD of OY-M strain (rpoDOY) could be a key regulator of host switching, because the expression level of rpoDOY was higher in insect hosts than in plant hosts. In this s...

Deletion analysis of the 5' flank of the Chinese hamster dihydrofolate reductase (dhfr) gene reveals a promoter region starting 48 base pairs upstream of the major transcriptional start site. A dhfr minigene containing approximately 900 base pairs of 5' flank and one small intron was used as a wild-type standard. Seven deletions were created with BAL-31. Promoter activity was measured in three ...

Expression of hTERT is the major limiting factor for telomerase activity. We previously showed that methylation of the hTERT promoter is necessary for its transcription and that CTCF can repress hTERT transcription by binding to the first exon. In this study, we used electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) to show that CTCF does not bind the methylat...

Expression of the human low-affinity Fc receptors for IgG (human Fc gamma RII) is differentially regulated. We report here the characterization of the promoter structure of the human Fc gamma RIIB gene and the isolation of the promoter region-binding proteins by a yeast one-hybrid assay. The minimal 154-bp region upstream from the transcription start site of the human Fc gamma RIIB gene was sho...

The activation of the RET signaling pathway during embryogenesis is a crucial prerequisite for a directional migration of enteric nervous system progenitor cells. Loss-of-function germline mutations of the RET proto-oncogene are reported in familial and sporadic cases of Hirschsprung disease (HSCR) with a variable frequency. Furthermore, variants of several RET polymorphisms are over- or under-...

We investigated the induction of human globin gene activity by 3 classes of histone deacetylase inhibitors: amide analogues of trichostatin A, hydroxamic acid analogues of trapoxin, and scriptaid and its analogues. The screening consisted of measuring the effects of these compounds on and human gene promoter activity by using cultures of GM979 cells stably transfected with a construct containin...

Interferon regulatory factors (IRFs) bind to the interferon-stimulated response element (ISRE) and regulate interferon- and virus-mediated gene expression. IRF-1 acts as a transcriptional activator, while IRF-2 acts as a repressor. Here we show that IRF-1 and IRF-2 bind to both cellular TFIIB, a component of the basal transcription machinery, and recombinant TFIIB (rTFIIB) and that this protein...

Uncoupling protein-2 (UCP2) is a mitochondrial inner-membrane carrier protein that is involved in the control of fatty acid metabolism. To understand the mechanism of the transcriptional regulation of ucp2 in the pathogenesis of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), we cloned 500 bp upstream of the ucp2 exon 1 from a rat liver cDNA library and identified cis-acting regulatory elements. The trans...

hHSS (human hepatic stimulator substance) stimulates hepatocyte growth. To understand the mechanism controlling hHSS expression, we analysed the proximal promoter activity and identified two regulatory regions (-212/-192 and -152/-132) that were important for transcription in HepG2 cells. Using the luciferase reporter assay, gel-shift experiments and ChIP (chromatin immunoprecipitation), we fou...