The murine p75 TNF receptor promoter region: DNA sequence and characterization of a cis-acting silencer

The promoter region of the murine p75 TNF receptor (TNF-R) was isolated fro m a mouse genomic DNA cosmid library. The promoter region is devoid of TATA box and has the characteristics of a house keeping gene since it contains multiple SPI binding sites. Its mRNA has different inititiation sites in di fferent lymphoid cell Lines. This promoter confers transcriptional activity to heterologous reporter genes. Deletion analysis showed that there is a silencer element located upstream from position -841. This inhibitory sequence is active both in fibroblasts and T-cell lines transiently or permanently transfected. A fragment from -9 29 to -841 is capable of transferring this 'silencer' activity to the early SV40 promoter. This activity could be blocked in trans- when a plasmid con taining the same sequence was co-transfected with the reporter plasmid indi cating that a protein binds to this region of the promoter. (C) 1999 Elsevi er Science Ltd. All rights reserved.