FIG. 9.

Functional analysis of the HSsII region. The 125-bp HSsII enhancer was scanned for (i) sequences conserved between mouse and human and (ii) putative binding motifs for any of the known transcription factor families. Based on this information, we engineered mutant 125-bp K14 enhancer constructs harboring mutations in one of the conserved sequences (Con Seq) within this region. Areas mutated are denoted by the circumscribed X's, with the mutated residues indicated above. Wild-type and mutant plasmids were transfected into human and mouse keratinocytes (hK and mK) along with a CMV-lacZ reporter construct, and luciferase activities were determined and normalized against the β-galactosidase values. Each experiment was repeated at least three times, and data represent averages with standard deviations. The activities of the 700TKLuc (not shown) and 125TKLuc were set at 100%.