Faculty Bibliography

The thyroid hormones and retinoic acid are potent modulators of differentiation, development, and gene expression. The transcriptional activities of these ligands are mediated by closely related nuclear receptors which bind and activate identical hormone responsive DNA elements. We noticed that a region within the ligand binding or E domain is well conserved between receptors for these hormones. This region contains hydrophobic heptad repeats that are structurally similar to the leucine-zipper dimerization domain. To study the function of this conserved domain, we examined the transcriptional responses of thyroid hormone receptor/c-erbA deletion mutants which lacked the heptad repeats. We previously reported that the chick c-erbA-alpha possesses hormone-independent (constitutive) activity in cells which express endogenous rat thyroid hormone receptor. We now demonstrate that this activity is abolished upon deletion of the conserved heptad repeats. This suggests that the heptad repeats mediate in vivo interactions between chick c-erbA and rat thyroid hormone receptors. To further test this hypothesis deletion mutants of chick c-erbA were constructed which contained all eight heptad repeats but which lacked the zinc-finger DNA binding domain. Although these mutants are transcriptionally inactive, they act in a dominant-negative fashion to block trans-activation by both the chick c-erbA-alpha and the endogenous thyroid hormone and retinoic acid receptors. We suggest that the heptad repeats mediate the formation of inactive mutant/wild-type hetero-dimers. Dimer formation suggests a mechanism to account for the dominant-negative phenotypes displayed by nonhormone binding variants of c-erbA, the proto-oncoprotein v-erbA and patients with the generalized thyroid hormone resistance syndrome

Rat GH gene expression is known to be stimulated by several factors, including thyroid hormone and GRF. This effect of GRF appears to be mediated by cAMP resulting from activation of adenylate cyclase by the peptide. The elements of the rat GH gene important for thyroid hormone stimulation and cell-specific expression have been previously mapped using gene transfection techniques. Cell-specific expression of the gene is mediated by two cell-specific elements located from -137 to -107 and from -95 to -65. Sequences mediating thyroid hormone stimulation are thought to be located between -208 and -160. In this study, using three different methods to elevate cAMP levels in cells [forskolin, a direct activator of the adenylate cyclase catalytic subunit; 8-(4-chlorophenylthio)cAMP, a nonmetabolizable cAMP analog; and isobutylmethylxanthine, a phosphodiesterase inhibitor], we show that 5'-flanking DNA of the rat GH gene can mediate stimulation by cAMP (10- to 20-fold). The cAMP-responsive region was mapped to sequences between -104 and +11, which contains the proximal cell-specific element (-95/-65) important for cell-specific expression. Either the -97/-65 or the -104/-47 region of the gene, cloned upstream of a heterologous promoter, conferred only minimal or no activation by cAMP. This suggests that these sequences are not the direct target of cAMP action or that they are insufficient alone to mediate the cAMP response. The cAMP regulatory element (TGACGTCA) is not found between - 104 and +11, and cAMP activation does not appear to act via putative AP-2 elements, since phorbol esters did not stimulate expression.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)