Analysis of the heavy metal-responsive transcription factor MTF-1 from human and mouse
- Universitaet Zuerich (Switzerland); and others
Heavy metal-induced transcription in mammalian cells is conferred by the metalresponsive 70 kDa transcription factor MTF-1 which contains six zinc fingers and at least three activation domains. In previous cell transfection experiments we have shown that the zinc finger region confers an about 3 fold metal inducibility of transcription, due to its differential zinc binding. However, we also noted that human MTF-1 was more metal-responsive than the mouse factor (about 10 fold versus 3 fold, respectively). Here we analyze this difference in more detail by using chimeric human-mouse factors and narrow the critical region to a 64 amino acid stretch immediately downstream of the zinc fingers, overlapping with the acidic activation domain. A short human segment of this region (aa 313-377) confers efficient metal induction to the mouse MTF-1 when replacing the corresponding mouse region. However, high metal inducibility requires an unaltered MTF-I and is lost when human MTF-I is fused to the general activation domain of herpesvirus VP16 Wild type and truncation mutants of MTF-1 fused to VPI6 yield chimeras of high transcriptional activity, some exceeding the wildtype regulator, but only limited (about 3 fold) heavy metal inducibility. 22 refs., 4 figs.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 241179
- Journal Information:
- Somatic Cell and Molecular Genetics, Vol. 21, Issue 5; Other Information: PBD: Sep 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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