Molecular Characterization of cDNA Encoding a Novel Protein Related to Transcriptional Enhancer Factor-1 from Neural Precursor Cells

doi:10.1074/jbc.270.31.18649

Molecular Characterization of cDNA Encoding a Novel Protein Related to Transcriptional Enhancer Factor-1 from Neural Precursor Cells (*)

From the (1) Institute of Molecular Embryology and Genetics, Kumamoto University School of Medicine, Kumamoto 862, Japan and the
(2) Department of Anatomy, Kansai Medical University, Moriguchi, Osaka 570, Japan

^§ To whom correspondence should be addressed:
Institute of Molecular Embryology and Genetics, Kumamoto University School of Medicine, Kuhonji 4-24-1, Kumamoto 862, Japan.
Tel.: 81-96-373-5346; Fax: 81-96-373-5350.

Abstract

We identified a novel cDNA related to that of transcriptional enhancer factor-1 (TEF-1) during the course of isolation and characterization of cDNAs, whose mRNAs are preferentially expressed in the mouse neural precursor cells. The putative polypeptide, termed embryonic TEA domain-containing factor (ETF), deduced from the nucleotide sequence contains 445 amino acids and shares 66% amino acid identity with mouse and human TEF-1 proteins. The primary structure of the TEA domain, a probable DNA-binding domain, and the specific DNA binding activity to the GT-IIC motif of ETF are indistinguishable from those of the known vertebrate TEF-1 proteins. However, the expression of the ETF gene is strictly regulated in developing embryos and is limited to certain tissues, such as the hindbrain of a 10-day-old mouse embryo, in contrast to the ubiquitous expression pattern of the TEF-1 gene. These results suggest that ETF is a novel mammalian member of the TEA domain-containing transcription factor family and may be involved in the gene regulation of the neural development. We have discussed the possible existence of multiple subtypes of the mammalian TEF-1 family proteins, which may play different roles in cellular and developmental gene regulation.

Footnotes

↵* This work was supported in part by research grants from the Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture of Japan. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore by hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

The nucleotide sequence(s) reported in this paper has been submitted to the GenBank®/EMBL Data Bank with accession number(s) D50563[GenBank].
↵¹ The abbreviations used are:

NPC

neural precursor cells

TEF-1

transcriptional enhancer factor-1

ETF

embryonic TEA domain-containing factor

bp

base pair(s).
↵²M. Yasunami, K. Suzuki, and H. Ohkubo, unpublished observations.
- Received April 4, 1995.
- Revision received June 2, 1995.