Differential regulation of NF-kappaB by elongation factors is determined by core promoter type

A translation initiation element specific to mRNAs with very short 5'UTR that also regulates transcription

Transcription is controlled by cis regulatory elements, which if localized downstream to the transcriptional start site (TSS), in the 5′UTR, could influence translation as well. However presently there is little evidence for such composite regulatory elements. We have identified by computational analysis an abundant element located downstream to the TSS up to position +30, which controls both transcription and translation. This element has an invariable ATG sequence, which serves as the translation initiation codon in 64% of the genes bearing it. In these genes the initiating AUG is preceded by an extremely short 5′UTR. We show that translation in vitro and in vivo is initiated exclusively from the AUG of this motif, and that the AUG flanking sequences create a strong translation initiation context. This motif is distinguished from the well-known Kozak in its unique ability to direct efficient and accurate translation initiation from mRNAs with a very short 5′UTR. We therefore named it TISU for Translation Initiator of Short 5′UTR. Interestingly, this translation initiation element is also an essential transcription regulatory element of Yin Yang 1. Our characterization of a common transcription and translation element points to a link between mammalian transcription and translation initiation.

Promoter elements associated with RNA Pol II stalling in the Drosophila embryo

RNA Polymerase II (Pol II) is bound to the promoter regions of many or most developmental control genes before their activation during Drosophila embryogenesis. It has been suggested that Pol II stalling is used to produce dynamic and rapid responses of developmental patterning genes to transient cues such as extracellular signaling molecules. Here, we present a combined computational and experimental analysis of stalled promoters to determine how they come to bind Pol II in the early Drosophila embryo. At least one-fourth of the stalled promoters contain a shared sequence motif, the "pause button" (PB): KCGRWCG. The PB motif is sometimes located in the position of the DPE, and over one-fifth of the stalled promoters contain the following arrangement of core elements: GAGA, Inr, PB, and/or DPE. This arrangement was used to identify additional stalled promoters in the Drosophila genome, and permanganate footprint assays were used to confirm that the segmentation gene engrailed contains paused Pol II as seen for heat-shock genes. We discuss different models for Pol II binding and gene activation in the early embryo.

Links between core promoter and basic gene features influence gene expression

BACKGROUND

Diversity in rates of gene expression is essential for basic cell functions and is controlled by a variety of intricate mechanisms. Revealing general mechanisms that control gene expression is important for understanding normal and pathological cell functions and for improving the design of expression systems. Here we analyzed the relationship between general features of genes and their contribution to expression levels.

RESULTS

Genes were divided into four groups according to their core promoter type and their characteristics analyzed statistically. Surprisingly we found that small variations in the TATA box are linked to large differences in gene length. Genes containing canonical TATA are generally short whereas long genes are associated with either non-canonical TATA or TATA-less promoters. These differences in gene length are primarily determined by the size and number of introns. Generally, gene expression was found to be tightly correlated with the strength of the TATA-box. However significant reduction in gene expression levels were linked with long TATA-containing genes (canonical and non-canonical) whereas intron length hardly affected the expression of TATA-less genes. Interestingly, features associated with high translation are prevalent in TATA-containing genes suggesting that their protein production is also more efficient.

CONCLUSION

Our results suggest that interplay between core promoter type and gene size can generate significant diversity in gene expression.

Wide-scale analysis of human functional transcription factor binding reveals a strong bias towards the transcription start site

Background

Transcription factors (TF) regulate expression by binding to specific DNA sequences. A binding event is functional when it affects gene expression. Functionality of a binding site is reflected in conservation of the binding sequence during evolution and in over represented binding in gene groups with coherent biological functions. Functionality is governed by several parameters such as the TF-DNA binding strength, distance of the binding site from the transcription start site (TSS), DNA packing, and more. Understanding how these parameters control functionality of different TFs in different biological contexts is a must for identifying functional TF binding sites and for understanding regulation of transcription.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We introduce a novel method to screen the promoters of a set of genes with shared biological function (obtained from the functional Gene Ontology (GO) classification) against a precompiled library of motifs, and find those motifs which are statistically over-represented in the gene set. More than 8000 human (and 23,000 mouse) genes, were assigned to one of 134 GO sets. Their promoters were searched (from 200 bp downstream to 1000 bp upstream the TSS) for 414 known DNA motifs. We optimized the sequence similarity score threshold, independently for every location window, taking into account nucleotide heterogeneity along the promoters of the target genes. The method, combined with binding sequence and location conservation between human and mouse, identifies with high probability functional binding sites for groups of functionally-related genes. We found many location-sensitive functional binding events and showed that they clustered close to the TSS. Our method and findings were tested experimentally.

Conclusions/Significance

We identified reliably functional TF binding sites. This is an essential step towards constructing regulatory networks. The promoter region proximal to the TSS is of central importance for regulation of transcription in human and mouse, just as it is in bacteria and yeast.