The pseudorabies immediate early protein stimulates in vitro transcription by facilitating TFIID: promoter interactions.

The pseudorabies virus immediate early (IE) protein, partially purified from infected HeLa cells, stimulated transcription initiation by RNA polymerase II and associated factors in HeLa nuclear extracts. This stimulation was maximal at low template concentrations, where the basal level of transcription was also low. In an analysis of the limitations on transcription under these conditions, it was found that transcription could be increased drastically not only by IE addition but also by (1) the addition of nonpromoter-containing DNA, which titrated nonspecific DNA-binding proteins in the crude nuclear extract, and (2) preincubation of the template with either the nuclear extract (in the absence of Mg2+) or with the TATA box-binding factor, TFIID. These results suggest that in the absence of IE, nonspecific DNA-binding proteins competed with TFIID for binding to the promoter, thus making TFIID: promoter interactions limiting for transcription. The stimulation of transcription effected by IE was essentially the same as that observed following preassociation of TFIID with the template or by titration of nonspecific DNA-binding proteins. Moreover, the presence of IE under the latter conditions did not stimulate transcription further. These observations strongly suggest that all of these manipulations affected the same limiting step and, thus, that IE accentuated the rate or extent of formation of a preinitiation complex involving the TATA factor, rather than subsequent initiation or elongation steps.