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PMID: 7935371 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

The RNA polymerase I transactivator upstream binding factor requires its dimerization domain and high-mobility-group (HMG) box 1 to bend, wrap, and positively supercoil enhancer DNA.

Molecular and cellular biology ·Vol. 14 ·No. 10 ·1994-10-00 ·Pages 6476-88

Putnam CD, Copenhaver GP, Denton ML, Pikaard CS

Abstract

Upstream binding factor (UBF) is an important transactivator of RNA polymerase I and is a member of a family of proteins that contain nucleic acid binding domains named high-mobility-group (HMG) boxes because of their similarity to HMG chromosomal proteins. UBF is a highly sequence-tolerant DNA-binding protein for which no binding consensus sequence has been identified. Therefore, it has been suggested that UBF may recognize preformed structural features of DNA, a hypothesis supported by UBF's ability to bind synthetic DNA cruciforms, four-way junctions, and even tRNA. We show here that full-length UBF can also bend linear DNA to mediate circularization of probes as small as 102 bp in the presence of DNA ligase. Longer probes in the presence of UBF become positively supercoiled when ligated, suggesting that UBF wraps the DNA in a right-handed direction, opposite the direction of DNA wrapping around a nucleosome. The dimerization domain and HMG box 1 are necessary and sufficient to circularize short probes and supercoil longer probes in the presence of DNA ligase. UBF's sequence tolerance coupled with its ability to bend and wrap DNA makes UBF an unusual eukaryotic transcription factor. However, UBF's ability to bend DNA might explain how upstream and downstream rRNA gene promoter domains interact. UBF-induced DNA wrapping could also be a mechanism by which UBF counteracts histone-mediated gene repression.

MeSH Terms
Animals Base Sequence DNA Ligases/metabolism DNA Probes/metabolism DNA, Superhelical/metabolism DNA-Binding Proteins/genetics,metabolism Deoxyribonuclease I/metabolism Enhancer Elements, Genetic High Mobility Group Proteins/genetics Models, Biological Molecular Sequence Data Nucleic Acid Conformation Pol1 Transcription Initiation Complex Proteins Protein Binding Protein Conformation RNA Polymerase I/genetics Structure-Activity Relationship Trans-Activators/metabolism Transcription Factors/genetics,metabolism Xenopus laevis
Chemicals
DNA Probes DNA, Superhelical DNA-Binding Proteins High Mobility Group Proteins Pol1 Transcription Initiation Complex Proteins Trans-Activators Transcription Factors transcription factor UBF RNA Polymerase I Deoxyribonuclease I DNA Ligases
Authors & Affiliations
4 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Putnam C D
Biology Department, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130.
Copenhaver G P
Denton M L
Pikaard C S
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Article Info
Journal
Molecular and cellular biology
Abbr.
Mol Cell Biol
ISSN
0270-7306
DOI
10.1128/mcb.14.10.6476-6488.1994
Published
1994-10-00
Pages
6476-88
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
8109087
PMCID
PMC359177
Subset
IM
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1128/mcb.14.10.6476-6488.1994 PMC Full Text View journal details
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