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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 280, Issue 46, 38787-38794, November 18, 2005

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Distinct Regulatory Elements Mediate Similar Expression Patterns in the Excretory Cell of Caenorhabditis elegans^*

Zhongying Zhao1, Li Fang, Nansheng Chen¶, Robert C. Johnsen, Lincoln Stein¶, and David L. Baillie

From the Department of Genome Science, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-7730, the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada, and the ^¶Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York 11724

Identification of cis-regulatory elements and their binding proteins constitutes an important part of understanding gene function and regulation. It is well accepted that co-expressed genes tend to share transcriptional elements. However, recent findings indicate that co-expression data show poor correlation with co-regulation data even in unicellular yeast. This motivates us to experimentally explore whether it is possible that co-expressed genes are subject to differential regulatory control using the excretory cell of Caenorhabditis elegans as an example. Excretory cell is a functional equivalent of human kidney. Transcriptional regulation of gene expression in the cell is largely unknown. We isolated a 10-bp excretory cell-specific cis-element, Ex-1, from a pgp-12 promoter. The significance of the element has been demonstrated by its capacity of converting an intestine-specific promoter into an excretory cell-specific one. We also isolated a cDNA encoding an Ex-1 binding transcription factor, DCP-66, using a yeast one-hybrid screen. Role of the factor in regulation of pgp-12 expression has been demonstrated both in vitro and in vivo. Search for occurrence of Ex-1 reveals that only a small portion of excretory cell-specific promoters contain Ex-1. Two other distinct cis-elements isolated from two different promoters can also dictate the excretory cell-specific expression but are independent of regulation by DCP-66. The results indicate that distinct regulatory elements are able to mediate the similar expression patterns.

Received for publication, May 25, 2005 , and in revised form, August 23, 2005.

^* This work was supported by NSERC Canada, Genome British Columbia, and Genome Canada. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

The on-line version of this article (available at http://www.jbc.org) contains supplemental Figs. S1-S5 and Tables 1-3.

¹ To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: 206-221-4648; Fax: 206-685-7301; E-mail: zhao{at}gs.washington.edu.

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