CHARACTERIZATION OF THE HUMAN ANTIZYME GENE

Antizyme is a polyamine-inducible protein involved in feedback regulat ion of cellular polyamine levels. Recently, we isolated genomic clones for the human antizyme gene and determined its chromosomal location ( Matsufuji et al., Genomics 38 (1996) 112-114). In the present study, w e report complete nucleotide sequence and organization of the human an tizyme gene. The organizations of human and rat genes are very similar , but their introns show divergency in terms of the length and nucleot ide sequence. Luciferase reporter assay revealed that the 5'-flanking region of the human gene had a strong transcriptional activity in NIH- 3T3 with and without addition of spermidine. The promoter was also eff ective in transfected COS7 and HeLa cells. A 223-bp region at the prox imity of the transcriptional start points carries several regulatory s equence motifs including a TATA box, CAAT boxes and GC boxes, and was shown to be important for the strong transcriptional activity. (C) 199 7 Elsevier Science B.V.