CHARACTERIZATION OF THE GENE ENCODING THE HUMAN TRANSCRIPTIONAL ELONGATION-FACTOR TFIIS

The transcriptional elongation factor TFIIS causes stimulation of RNA polymerase II elongation and readthrough of some of the elongation blo cks. We present cloning and sequence characterization of the human TFI IS gene and a pseudogene. The intron-less organization of both of thes e genes indicates that previously identified cDNAs which suggested the presence of an intron were the products of cloning artifacts. The gen e is organized in an uninterrupted ORF which codes for 301 amino acids , whereas the pseudogene lacks an ORF able to code for a full-length p rotein. The potential promoter for the gene has two putative GC-box-ty pe consensus sequences, two CCAAT-box consensus sequences, and is boun ded by a human Alu sequence. Two potential transcriptional termination signal sequences downstream from the consensus polyadenylation signal are proposed.