Genomic footprinting: detection of putative regulatory proteins in the promoter region of the interferon alpha-1 gene in normal human tissues.

Dimethyl sulfate (DMS) genomic footprinting revealed the presence of putative regulatory proteins attached to specific sequences of the promoter region of the interferon (IFN) alpha-1 gene in normal human tissue. The pattern of protein-DNA interactions observed for the human alpha-1 promoter in freshly isolated human spleen cells was identical to that seen in DNA from the B-cell line Namalwa. The protein interactions involving the human IFN alpha-1 promoter spanned a region from positions -38 to -174 relative to the cap site which encompasses that part of the IFN alpha-1 promoter previously shown by deletion analysis to confer virus inducibility on the IFN alpha-1 gene. DNase I footprinting performed on isolated nuclei revealed a pattern of protein-DNA interactions for the promoter region of the IFN alpha-1 gene similar to that obtained with DMS footprinting performed on whole cells, with the appearance or disappearance of only a few additional protected nucleotides outside the region identified by the use of DMS. These results provide the first direct evidence for the presence of proteins bound in vivo to those parts of the IFN alpha-1 promoter between positions -64 and -109 previously shown by deletion analysis to confer virus inducibility on the IFN alpha-1 gene. The pattern of protein-DNA interactions observed for the IFN alpha-1 promoter after virus induction was identical to that seen before induction, in keeping with the finding that many transcriptional activators are present in both induced and uninduced cells.