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. 1987 Jun;7(6):2046–2051. doi: 10.1128/mcb.7.6.2046

Formation of an active transcription complex in the Drosophila melanogaster 5S RNA gene is dependent on an upstream region.

A D Garcia, A M O'Connell, S J Sharp
PMCID: PMC365324  PMID: 3110601

Abstract

We constructed deletion-substitution and linker-scanning mutations in the 5'-flanking region of the Drosophila melanogaster 5S RNA gene. In vitro transcription of these templates in Drosophila and HeLa cell extracts revealed the presence of an essential control region (-30 region) located between nucleotides -39 and -26 upstream of the transcription initiation site: deletion of sequences upstream of nucleotide position -39 had no detectable effect on the wild-type level of in vitro transcription, whereas mutations extending between positions -39 and 1 resulted in templates with decreased transcriptional levels; specifically, deletion and linker-scanning mutations in the -34 to -26 region (-30 region) resulted in loss of transcription. The -30 region is essential for transcription and therefore forms part of the Drosophila 5S RNA gene transcription promoter. Compared with the activity of the wild-type gene, mutant 5S DNAs exhibited no impairment in the ability to sequester limiting transcription factors in a template exclusion competition assay. While we do not know which transcription factor(s) interacts with the -30 region, the possible involvement of RNA polymerase III at this region is discussed.

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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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