PUBLICATION

Transcriptional activation of zebrafish cyp11a1 promoter is dependent on the nuclear receptor Ff1b

Authors
Quek, S.I., and Chan, W.K.
ID
ZDB-PUB-090601-18
Date
2009
Source
Journal of molecular endocrinology   43(3): 121-130 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Chan, Woon-Khiong
Keywords
none
MeSH Terms
  • Animals
  • Base Pairing/genetics
  • Binding, Competitive
  • Cell Line
  • Cholesterol Side-Chain Cleavage Enzyme/genetics*
  • Conserved Sequence
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic*
  • Green Fluorescent Proteins/metabolism
  • Humans
  • Mice
  • Organ Specificity
  • Promoter Regions, Genetic/genetics*
  • Protein Binding
  • Receptors, Cytoplasmic and Nuclear/metabolism*
  • Response Elements/genetics
  • Transcription Factors/metabolism*
  • Transcriptional Activation/genetics*
  • Zebrafish/anatomy & histology
  • Zebrafish/genetics*
  • Zebrafish Proteins/metabolism*
PubMed
19477906 Full text @ J. Mol. Endocrinol.
Abstract
The cytochrome P450scc (cholesterol side-chain cleavage enzyme) encoded by CYP11A1 catalyzes the first step in steroidogenesis by converting cholesterol to pregnenolone, and thus, controls the synthesis rate of steroid hormones. In mammals, SF-1 (Steroidogenic Factor 1), has been implicated in the cAMP-mediated transcriptional activation of CYP11A1 promoter. In zebrafish, Ff1b has been established as the homolog of SF-1. To access the dependency of cyp11a1 expression on Ff1b, the putative promoter of zebrafish cyp11al, spanning 1.7 kb, was isolated and bioinformatics analysis revealed two conserved FF1 response elements (FREs) that potentially bind Ff1b. Transfection studies in cell lines of different lineages confirmed that this promoter fragment contained the necessary regulatory elements required for its basal transcription. Truncation and mutagenesis studies performed in Y1 adrenocortical cells revealed that only the proximal FRE was essential for transcriptional activation. Electrophoretic mobility shift assay, however, indicated that Ff1b bound to both FREs, while their in vivo occupancy was confirmed using chromatin immunoprecipitation assay. Lastly, the cyp11a1 promoter was able to direct EGFP expression specifically to the interrenal gland and genital ridge when transiently expressed in microinjected zebrafish embryos.
Genes / Markers
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Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping