Tissue-specific differences in the binding of nuclear proteins to a CCAAT motif in the promoter of the androgen-regulated C3 gene.

The expression of the gene for the C3 polypeptide is confined to the ventral prostate of the male rat and is regulated by androgens. To study the mechanism of this tissue-specific and hormone-dependent regulation we have used DNase-I footprinting and band-shift assays to locate binding sites for nuclear proteins isolated from different tissues. In this paper we present evidence that there are tissue-specific differences in the nuclear proteins that are able to bind to a CCAAT motif and a nuclear factor-I consensus that are present in the promoter of the rat C3 gene. Using competition assays and heat denaturation we show that the CAAT box/enhancer binding protein itself may be one of the transcription factors involved.