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Mol Cell Biol, May 1998, p. 2617-2628, Vol. 18, No. 5
Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Received 29 December 1997/Returned for modification 3 February
1998/Accepted 9 February 1998
The human embryonic
0270-7306/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
The HMG Domain Protein SSRP1/PREIIBF Is Involved in
Activation of the Human Embryonic
-Like Globin Gene

and
-like globin (
-globin) gene is expressed
in primitive erythroid cells of the yolk sac during the first few weeks
of development. We have previously shown that developmental stage-specific expression of the
-globin gene is mediated by multiple positive and negative regulatory elements upstream of the
start of transcription. Of particular interest is one positive regulatory element, PRE II, that works together with other elements (PRE I and PRE V) to confer developmental stage- and/or tissue-specific expression on a minimal promoter. An ~85- to 90-kDa PRE II binding factor (PREIIBF) was identified in the nuclei of erythroid cells and
shown to bind specifically to a novel 19-bp region within PRE II;
binding of this protein to PRE II resulted in bending of the target DNA
and was required for promoter activation. In this report, we present
the cDNA expression cloning of PREIIBF. The cDNA encodes a previously
identified member of the HMG domain family of DNA binding proteins
termed SSRP1. By a number of biochemical and immunological criteria,
recombinant SSRP1 appears to be identical to the PREII binding factor
from erythroid nuclei. A hallmark of HMG domain proteins is their
ability to bend their target DNAs; therefore, as we speculated
previously, DNA bending by SSRP1/PREIIBF may contribute to the
mechanism by which PRE II synergizes with other regulatory elements
located upstream and downstream. In contrast with reports from other
investigators, we demonstrate that SSRP1 binds DNA with clear sequence
specificity. Moreover, we show that SSRP1/PREIIBF lacks a classical
activation domain but that binding by this protein to PRE II is
required for activation of a minimal promoter in stable erythroid cell
lines. These studies provide the first evidence that SSRP1 plays a role
in transcriptional regulation. SSRP1/PREIIBF may serve an architectural
function by helping to coordinate the assembly of a multiprotein
complex required for stage-specific regulation of the human
-globin
gene.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: The Mount Sinai
School of Medicine, Box 1079, East Building 11-70B, 1425 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10029. Phone: (212) 824-7420. Fax: (212) 849-2442. E-mail:
mhbaron{at}msvax.mssm.edu.
Present address: Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School,
Boston, MA 02115.
Present address: Department of Medicine, Brookdale Center for
Developmental and Molecular Biology, Ruttenberg Cancer Center, and
Institute for Gene Therapy and Molecular Medicine, The Mount Sinai
School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029.
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