The glucose/insulin response element of the L-pyruvate kinase gene is a perfect palindrome located from nt -168 to -144 with respect to the cap site. This element (L4) is partially homologous to MLTF binding sites. Its full efficiency requires cooperation with a contiguous binding site for HNF4, termed L3 and located from nt -145 to -125. In the presence of the L4 element contiguous to L3, cyclic AMP inhibits activity of the L-PK promoter while in its absence, or when the normal L4-L3 contiguity is modified, cyclic AMP behaves as a transcriptional activator that does not seem to be sequence-specific. Therefore, we propose that the mechanism of inhibition of the L-PK gene by cyclic AMP requires precise interactions between the nucleoprotein complex built up at sites L4 and L3 and other components of the L-PK transcription initiation complex.

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A DNA fragment spanning nucleotides -183 to -4 with respect to the cap site of the rat L-type pyruvate kinase (L-PK) gene contains at least four binding sites for putative transcriptional factors: hepatocyte nuclear factor 1 (HNF1), liver factor Al (LF-A1), nuclear factor 1 (NFl), and major late transcription factor (MLTF). This fragment was used to direct transcription of a reporter sequence (a G-free cassette) in cell extracts. This L-PK promoter was active in liver nuclear extracts, but not in extracts from nonhepatic tissues. A reduction of 50% of the activity was obtained with a deleted L-PK promoter containing only the HNFl-binding site. In contrast, deletion of the HNFl-binding site inactivated the promoter by more than 90%. These results were confirmed by titration experiments with synthetic oligonucleotides. Titration of HNF1 resulted in an 85% decrease of transcriptional activity, while titration of LF-A1 resulted in only a 40% decrease. The influence of NF1 and MLTF seemed to be marginal in this system. The proximal 5'-flanking sequence of the L-PK gene therefore appears to function in vitro as an efficient liver-specific promoter which requires the binding of the liver factor HNF1 and which is also stimulated by the binding of another liver-specific factor, LF-A1.