Expression of the mouse WNK1 gene in correlation with ganglioside GD3 and functional analysis of the mouse WNK1 promoter

Guichao Zeng, Luoyi Gao, Tian Xia, Yihua Gu, Robert K. Yu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

WNK1 is one of WNK (With No K=Lysine) protein kinases which comprise a newly described subfamily. Our studies showed that expression of the mouse WNK1 gene was dramatically suppressed in a tumor cell line when its phenotype was altered by suppression of the GD3-synthase gene expression. The mouse WNK1 gene was expressed at a high level at early stage of embryonic brain and its expression decreased as brain developed, similar to the expression pattern of the GD3-synthase gene. To study transcriptional regulation, we cloned a 5′-flanking 1239-bp fragment of the mouse WNK1 gene. This fragment contains a number of potential consensus binding sites for transcription factors, including Sp1, AP2, CCAAT, Est-1, Oct-1, CNBP, and NFkB, but lacks a TATA box. Primer extension identified multiple putative transcriptional initiation sites, including several sites downstream of the ATG codon. Activities of the promoter fragments were assessed in mouse breast Sa/R-MT cells by transient transfection and the results showed that the promoter elements between -700 and -977 is required for maintaining a high level of promoter activity of the TATA-less mouse WNK1 gene.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)233-239
Number of pages7
JournalGene
Volume344
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 3 2005

Keywords

  • Ganglioside
  • Gene expression
  • Promoter
  • Protein kinase
  • Transcriptional regulation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Genetics

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