| First Author | Kataoka H | Year | 2000 |
| Journal | Nucleic Acids Res | Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 2 | Pages | 626-33 |
| PubMed ID | 10606664 | Mgi Jnum | J:59877 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:1352259 | Doi | 10.1093/nar/28.2.626 |
| Citation | Kataoka H, et al. (2000) A novel snail-related transcription factor Smuc regulates basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor activities via specific E-box motifs. Nucleic Acids Res 28(2):626-33 |
| abstractText | Snail family proteins are zinc finger transcriptional regulators first identified in Drosophila which play critical roles in cell fate determination. We identified a novel Snail -related gene from murine skeletalmusclecells designated Smuc. Northern blot analysis showed that Smuc was highly expressed in skeletal muscle and thymus. Smuc contains five putative DNA-binding zinc finger domains in its C-terminal half. In electrophoretic mobility shift assays, recombinant zinc finger domains of Smuc specifically bound to CAGGTG and CACCTG E-box motifs (CANNTG). Because basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors (bHLH) bind to the same E-box sequences, we examined whether Smuc competes with the myogenic bHLH factor MyoD for DNA binding. Smuc inhibited the binding of a MyoD-E12 complex to the CACCTG E-box sequence in a dose-dependent manner and suppressed the transcriptional activity of MyoD-E12. When heterologously targeted to the thymidine kinase promoter as fusion proteins with the GAL4 DNA-binding domain, the non-zinc finger domain of Smuc acted as a transcriptional repressor. Furthermore, overexpression of Smuc in myoblasts repressed transactivation of muscle differentiation marker Troponin T. Thus, Smuc might regulate bHLH transcription factors by zinc finger domains competing for E-box binding, and non-zinc finger repressor domains might also confer transcriptional repression to control differentiation processes. |
