Organization, sequence, and expression of the murine S100 beta gene. Transcriptional regulation by cell type-specific cis-acting regulatory elements.

The organization, sequence, and transcriptional regulation of expression of the murine S100 beta gene are reported. The gene is approximately 9 kilobase pairs in length and is composed of three exons and two introns. The deduced murine S100 beta protein sequence differs from the human S100 beta protein by only 1 amino acid. The murine S100 beta gene contains a TATA box (AATAA) and a reverse CCAAT box (ATTGG) located at 30 nucleotides and 92 nucleotides upstream of the cap site, respectively. A 149-base pair DNA fragment (-157/-9) spanning the TATA box and the reverse CCAAT box functions as a promoter. The murine S100 beta promoter drives a 4-fold higher level of transcription in glial (C6) than in non-glial (3T3) cells, suggesting the existence of a potential cell type-specific regulatory element within the promoter region. The 5'-flanking region suppresses transcription from the homologous S100 beta as well as the heterologous SV40 promoters in an orientation-independent fashion. However, the 5'-flanking region exhibits cell type specificity when suppressing the S100 beta promoter-dependent transcription, indicating its involvement in the cell type-specific expression of S100 beta gene. In order to map cell type-specific regulatory elements, transcription analyses of various deletions of the 5'-region were carried out in C6 and 3T3 cells. Two cell type-specific negative regulatory elements, one active in non-glial cells and another active in glial cells, were mapped to the regions -1552/-1234 and -1234/-551, respectively. A strong negative regulatory element and a relatively weak negative element were located in the regions -551/-157 and -1669/-1552, respectively. The murine S100 beta gene is under complex transcriptional regulation involving tonic negative control exerted by combination of multiple cis-acting regulatory elements including cell type-specific elements.