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. 1991 Oct 25;19(20):5771–5775. doi: 10.1093/nar/19.20.5771

Estradiol down regulates the binding activity of an avian vitellogenin gene repressor (MDBP-2) and triggers a gradual demethylation of the mCpG pair of its DNA binding site.

J P Jost 1, H P Saluz 1, A Pawlak 1
PMCID: PMC328989  PMID: 1945854

Abstract

A negative regulating protein (MDBP-2) from rooster liver nuclear extracts binds preferentially to a methylated promoter region 5'TTCACCTTmCGCTATGAGGGGGATCATACTGG3' of the avian vitellogenin II gene (Nucleic Acids Res. 19, 1029-1034, 1991). Treatment of adult and immature roosters with estradiol results in a 90% decrease in the binding activity of MDBP-2 within three days. This corresponds to the level found in egg laying hens. The decrease in the binding activity of MDBP-2 precedes the onset of vitellogenin gene transcription. At the same time, there is a two-fold increase in the binding activity of NHP-1 (tested with the same oligonucleotide as for MDBP-2), a protein thought to be involved in the active demethylation of DNA. The methylated oligonucleotide binds either MDBP-2 or NHP-1 and there is no complex formation between the two proteins and DNA. Estradiol treatment does not change the equilibrium binding constant of MDBP-2 which is about 10(-9)M for the methylated oligonucleotide. The early kinetics of demethylation of the mCpG pair in the binding site of MDBP-2 was studied by means of genomic sequencing. A low level of demethylation of mCpG starts gradually on both DNA strands already 4 hours after estradiol treatment during the lag phase of vitellogenin mRNA synthesis. It is concluded that the lowering of the binding activity of MDBP-2 may have a stronger effect on the derepression of the gene than the slow demethylation of MDBP-2 DNA binding site. The role of the methylated CpG is to assure a high binding affinity of the repressor to DNA.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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