A TAU-PROMOTER REGION WITHOUT NEURONAL SPECIFICITY

The microtubule-associated protein tau is produced from a 6-kb mRNA ex pressed primarily in neurons. A 2-kb tau mRNA has also been characteri zed, which produces a tau isoform that localizes to the nucleus, and a n 8-kb mRNA is expressed in the PNS, Mapping and sequencing of the hum an tau gene start showed that it has an unusually GC-rich 5'-untransla ted region coded by a single untranslated exon (designated -1), Primer extensions and expression assays indicated that upstream of exon -1 i s a promoter that is not neuron specific. This region contains consens us binding sites for transcription factors AP2, Sp1, and GCF.