Architecture of a plant promoter: S1 nuclease hypersensitive features of maize Adh1

Abstract

S1 nuclease was used to probe the architectural characteristics of the maize alcohol dehydrogenase-1 gene promoter. Three sites were identified as hypersensitive to S1 digestion in supercoiled, but not linear plasmids containing the Adh1 gene. The sites mapped to areas located 65, 330 and 800 base pairs 5' to the start of transcription. In each case, the strand specific nicking pattern was determined with nucleotide level precision. The -65 site was found to be a homopurine/homopyrimidine tract. The -330 site mapped to the boundaries of a region of high Z-DNA potential and the -800 site mapped to a non-descript sequence. The possible biological significance of these sites is discussed.

A maize protein associated with the G-box binding complex has homology to brain regulatory proteins.

“…The 5'flanking sequence of the maize adhl gene contains severa1 near-and half-palindromic G-box elements, as shown in Figure 1 (Ferl and Nick, 1987;Ferl and Laughner, 1989), previously shown to have an in vivo footprint pattern similar to the Arabidopsis adh G-box (5'-CCACGTGG-3') (McKendree et al, 1990). These data suggest that GBF also interacts with the maize adhl promoter.…”

“…In both genes, transient expression studies have identified a complex array of positive regulatory elements in the upstream sequences, and, in maize adhl, enhancer-like elements able to confer anaerobic inducibility in either orientation have been found (Walker et al, 1987;Olive et al, 1990;McKendree and Ferl, 1992). In vivo detection of protein-DNA interactions by dimethyl sulfate footprinting revealed analogy among many of the binding sites of both the Arabidopsis adh and maize adhl5'flanking regions (Ferl and Nick, 1987;Ferl and Laughner, 1989). One such motif, 5'-GTGG-3', is present in three binding sites of the maize adhl promoter and in four sites of the Arabidopsis adh promoter.…”

“…The deduced amino acid sequences of these Comparison of the Arabidopsis adh -210, Arabidopsis rbcWA, and maize adh -180 G-box motifs and their methylation patterns (Ferl and Nick, 1987;Ferl and Laughner, 1989;Schindler and Cashmore, 1990 Striking conservation in the basic domain, involved in DNA recognition, has been observed among the GBFs, suggesting that they have similar binding site specificity. Thus far, two of the cloned GBFs, TAF-1 and GBF1, have been directly implicated in regulating transcription, based on transient expresSion studies (Oeda et al, 1991;Schindler et al, 1992b).…”

Organization and Regulatory Aspects of the Human Intestinal Mucin Gene (MUC2) Locus

“…Putative recognition sequences for transcription factors are shown. Some of the motifs are repeated several times, including GC boxes (putative Sp1 binding sites), the CCACCA sequence, which has been described in the SV40 enhancer, though the identity of the putative binding factor(s) (HC3) is not known (28), and a motif, CCCGG, which is present in the maize Adh1 promoter (29). In addition, several binding sites that play a role in the induction of gene expression and in cell proliferation and differentiation were noted.…”

Isolation and characterization of a fourth Arabidopsis thaliana G-box-binding factor, which has similarities to Fos oncoprotein.

“…In plant systems, one example of this complexity is illustrated by the hexameric G-box (5'-CACGTG-3') and those DNA elements that contain small variations on this palindromic sequence, which we refer to collectively as G-box-like elements. In some cases these elements have been identified as targets for nuclear DNA-binding factors, examples of which include the light-regulated genes of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (1), chlorophyll a/b binding proteins (2), and chalcone synthase (3), genes regulated by abscisic acid such as the Em gene of wheat (4) and the rabl6A gene of rice (5), as well as the stress-induced Adh gene of maize and Arabi-dopsis (6,7). The identification of these nuclear factors has prompted the isolation and characterization of 10 DNAbinding proteins specific for the G-box and G-box-like elements from four different plant species (4,(8)(9)(10)(11).…”