PMID: 9548489Apr 21, 1998Paper

Transcriptional regulation of the complement receptor 2 gene: role of a heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein

The Journal of Immunology : Official Journal of the American Association of Immunologists
M TolnayG C Tsokos

Abstract

Complement receptor 2 (CR2) has been implicated as a regulator of B cell function. In this study, we sought to identify mechanisms that control the expression of the CR2 gene in human B cells. Dibutyryl cAMP increased the DNA-binding activity of a nuclear protein that recognized specifically a CR2 promoter-defined oligonucleotide in human B cell lines. The nuclear protein was subsequently purified from B cell nuclear extracts using a biotinylated CR2 promoter-defined oligonucleotide. Partial amino acid sequence analysis of internal peptides revealed that the 42-kDa protein belongs to a family of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins (hnRNP). Using a set of mutated double-stranded oligonucleotides, we demonstrated that the purified protein displayed sequence specificity for the CR2 promoter-defined oligonucleotide. Like some hnRNP, this protein was found to bind to single-stranded DNA. The DNA-binding activity of the purified protein increased after in vitro phosphorylation with protein kinase A. Using a CAT reporter gene driven by a single recognition site in B cell lines, dibutyryl cAMP caused a 3-fold induction of reporter gene expression. The highest induction (6.7-fold) was achieved with a combination of dibutyryl cAMP a...Continue Reading

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