Thyroid hormone receptors bind to defined regions of the growth hormone and placental lactogen genes.

The intracellular receptor for thyroid hormone is a protein found in chromatin. Since thyroid hormone stimulates transcription of the growth hormone gene through an unknown mechanism, the hypothesis that the thyroid hormone-receptor complex interacts with defined regions of this gene has been investigated in a cell-free system. Nuclear extracts from human lymphoblastoid IM-9 cells containing thyroid hormone receptors were incubated with L-3,5,3'-tri[125I]iodothyronine and calf thymus DNA-cellulose. Restriction fragments of the human growth hormone gene were added to determine their ability to inhibit labeled receptor binding to DNA-cellulose. These fragments encompassed nucleotide sequences from about three kilobase pairs upstream to about four kilobase pairs downstream from the transcription initiation site. The thyroid hormone-receptor complex bound preferentially to the 5'-flanking sequences of the growth hormone gene in a region between nucleotide coordinates -290 and -129. The receptor also bound to an analogous promoter region in the human placental lactogen gene, which has 92% nucleotide sequence homology with the growth hormone gene. These binding regions appear to be distinct from those that are recognized by the receptor for glucocorticoids, which stimulate growth hormone gene expression synergistically with thyroid hormone. The presence of thyroid hormone was required for binding of its receptor to the growth hormone gene promoter, suggesting that thyroid hormone renders the receptor capable of recognizing specific gene regions.