Mol Cell Biol, July 1998, p. 4197-4208, Vol. 18, No. 7
0270-7306/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


Department of Molecular Genetics, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 77030,1 and Center for Neuronal Survival, Montreal Neurological Institute, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2B4, Canada2
Received 5 February 1998/Returned for modification 3 March 1998/Accepted 27 April 1998
Osf2/Cbfa1, hereafter called Osf2, is a member of the Runt-related
family of transcription factors that plays a critical role during
osteoblast differentiation. Like all Runt-related proteins, it contains
a runt domain, which is the DNA-binding domain, and a C-terminal
proline-serine-threonine-rich (PST) domain thought to be the
transcription activation domain. Additionally, Osf2 has two
amino-terminal domains distinct from any other Runt-related protein. To
understand the mechanisms of osteoblast gene regulation by Osf2, we
performed an extensive structure-function analysis. After defining a
short Myc-related nuclear localization signal, a deletion analysis
revealed the existence of three transcription activation domains and
one repression domain. AD1 (for activation domain 1) comprises the
first 19 amino acids of the molecule, which form the first domain
unique to Osf2, AD2 is formed by the glutamine-alanine (QA) domain, the
second domain unique to Osf2, and AD3 is located in the N-terminal half
of the PST domain and also contains sequences unique to Osf2. The
transcription repression domain comprises the C-terminal 154 amino
acids of Osf2. DNA-binding, domain-swapping, and protein interaction
experiments demonstrated that full-length Osf2 does not interact with
Cbf
, a known partner of Runt-related proteins, whereas a deletion
mutant of Osf2 containing only the runt and PST domains does. The QA
domain appears to be responsible for preventing this
heterodimerization. Thus, our results uncover the unique functional
organization of Osf2 by identifying functional domains not shared with
other Runt-related proteins that largely control its transactivation
and heterodimerization abilities.
Present address: Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Baylor
College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030.
Present address: Department of Medicine, New York University
Medical Center, New York, NY 10016.
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