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. 1990 Oct;87(20):7878–7882. doi: 10.1073/pnas.87.20.7878

Estrogen receptor level determines sex-specific in vitro transcription from the Xenopus vitellogenin promoter.

B Corthésy 1, F X Claret 1, W Wahli 1
PMCID: PMC54854  PMID: 2236004

Abstract

Female-specific expression of the Xenopus laevis vitellogenin gene was reconstituted in vitro by addition of recombinant vaccinia-virus-produced estrogen receptor to nuclear extracts from male livers, in which this gene is silent. Transcription enhancement was at least 30 times and was selectively restricted to vitellogenin templates containing the estrogen-responsive unit. Thus, in male hepatocytes, estrogen receptor is the limiting regulatory factor that in the female liver controls efficient and accurate sex-specific expression of the vitellogenin gene. Furthermore, the Xenopus liver factor B, which is essential in addition to the estrogen receptor for the activation of this gene, was successfully replaced in the Xenopus extract by purified human nuclear factor I, identifying factor B of Xenopus as a functional homolog of this well-characterized human transcription factor.

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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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