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Molecular and Cellular Biology, April 1999, p. 2880-2886, Vol. 19, No. 4
Department of
Pathology1 and Division of Infectious
Diseases and Immunology,2 Saint Louis
University, St. Louis, Missouri 63104
Received 18 August 1998/Returned for modification 28 October
1998/Accepted 18 November 1998
We initially identified c-myc promoter binding protein
1 (MBP-1), which negatively regulates c-myc promoter
activity, from a human cervical carcinoma cell expression library.
Subsequent studies on the biological role of MBP-1 demonstrated
induction of cell death in fibroblasts and loss of
anchorage-independent growth, reduced invasive ability, and
tumorigenicity of human breast carcinoma cells. To investigate the
potential role of MBP-1 as a transcriptional regulator, a chimeric
protein containing MBP-1 fused to the DNA binding domain of the yeast
transactivator factor GAL4 was constructed. This fusion protein
exhibited repressor activity on the herpes simplex virus thymidine
kinase promoter via upstream GAL4 DNA binding sites. Structure-function
analysis of mutant MBP-1 in the context of the GAL4 DNA binding domain revealed that MBP-1 transcriptional repressor domains are located in
the N terminus (amino acids 1 to 47) and C terminus (amino acids 232 to
338), whereas the activation domain lies in the middle (amino acids 140 to 244). The N-terminal domain exhibited stronger transcriptional
repressor activity than the C-terminal region. When the N-terminal
repressor domain was transferred to a potent activator, transcription
was strongly inhibited. Both of the repressor domains contained
hydrophobic regions and had an LXVXL motif in common. Site-directed
mutagenesis in the repressor domains indicated that the leucine
residues in the LXVXL motif are required for transcriptional
repression. Mutation of the leucine residues in the common motif of
MBP-1 also abrogated the repressor activity on the c-myc
promoter. In addition, the leucine mutant forms of MBP-1 failed to
suppress cell growth in fibroblasts like wild-type MBP-1. Taken
together, our results indicate that MBP-1 is a complex cellular factor
containing multiple transcriptional regulatory domains that play an
important role in cell growth regulation.
0270-7306/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Functional Domains of c-myc Promoter
Binding Protein 1 Involved in Transcriptional Repression and Cell
Growth Regulation
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Pathology, Saint Louis University School of Medicine, 1402 S. Grand
Blvd., 4th Floor, St. Louis, MO 63104. Phone: (314) 577-8331. Fax:
(314) 771-3816. E-mail: rayrb{at}slu.edu.
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