Competitive and cooperative functioning of the anterior and posterior promoter elements of an Alu family repeat.

Similar to tRNA genes and the VAI gene, the Alu family repeats are transcribed by RNA polymerase III and contain a split intragenic promoter. Results of our previous studies have shown that when the anterior, box A-containing promoter element (5'-Pu-Pu-Py-N-N-Pu-Pu-Py-G-G-3' in which Pu is any purine, Py is any pyrimidine, and N is any nucleotide) of a human Alu family repeat is deleted, the remaining box B-containing promoter element (5'-G-A/T-T-C-Pu-A-N-N-C-3') is still capable of directing weak transcriptional initiation at approximately 70 base pairs (bp) upstream from the box B sequence. This is different from the tRNA genes in which the box A-containing promoter element plays the major role in the positioning of the transcriptional initiation site(s). To account for this difference, we first carried out competition experiments in which we show that the posterior element of the Alu repeat competes with the VAI gene effectively for the transcription factor C in HeLa cell extracts. We then constructed a series of contraction and expansion mutants of the Alu repeat promoter in which the spacing between boxes A and B was systematically varied by molecular cloning. In vitro transcription of these clones in HeLa cell extracts was analyzed by RNA gel electrophoresis and primer extension mapping. We show that when the box A and box B promoter sequences are separated by 47 to 298 bp, the transcriptional initiation sites remain 4 to 5 bp upstream from box A. However, this positioning function by the box A-containing promoter element was lost when the spacing was shortened to only 26 bp or increased to longer than 600 bp. Instead, transcriptional initiation occurred approximately 70 bp upstream from box B, similar to that in the clones containing only the box B promoter element. All the mutant clones were transcribed less efficiently than was the wild type. An increase in the distance between boxes A and B also activated a second box A-like element within the Alu family repeat. We compare these results with the results of tRNA gene studies. We also discuss this comparison in terms of the positioning function of the split class III promoter elements and the evolutionary conservation of the spacing between the two promoter elements for optimum transcriptional efficiency.