The bidirectional upstream element of the adenovirus-2 major late promoter binds a single monomeric molecule of the upstream factor.

The adenovirus-2 major late promoter (Ad2MLP) upstream element (Ad2MLP-UE) contains a sequence of interrupted dyad symmetry. By inverting this element we have found that it functions in a bidirectional manner both in vivo and in vitro. Footprinting and binding kinetics studies have demonstrated that both orientations of the upstream element bind the sequence-specific upstream factor (UEF) in a similar fashion. These data strongly suggest that the dyad symmetric sequence is sufficient for fully functional binding of the UEF. Binding studies of the UEF to the Ad2MLP-UE indicate that, contrary to prokaryotic palindromic promoter elements which bind multimers of specific factors, the entire Ad2MLP dyad symmetric upstream element binds a single monomeric UEF molecule.