• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.143-148
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• 2002

The human polyomavirus JC virus is the etiologic agent of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). The JC virus early promoter directs cell-specific expression of the viral replication factor large T antigen, thus transcriptional regulation constitutes a major mechanism of glial tropism in PML. Here we found that pentanucleotide sequence immediately upstream of the TATA sequence functions as a cell-specific silencer in the JC virus transcription. In vitro binding studies showed that synthetic oligonucleotides spanning a pentanucleotide sequence, designated "oligo 2", interacts with nuclear proteins from non-glial cells in a cell-specific manner. Furthermore, the sequence preferentially repressed the heterologous thymidine kinase promoter activity in non-glial cells. We also tested whether JC virus transcription is controlled by DNA methylation. Transient transfection of in vitro methylated JC virus promoter abolished transcription in both the glial and non-glial cells. The repression fold was much larger in glial cells than in non-glial cells. Taken together, this finding suggests that glial cell-specific expression of the JC virus is controlled by DNA methylation as well as cell-specific silencers.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.544-550
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• 2005

To develop a highly efficient mammalian expression vector, a series of vectors were constructed based on the murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) immediate-early (IE) promoter and human ${\beta}$-globin second intron. The resulting MCMV promoter was several-fold stronger than the HCMV promoter in various mammalian cell lines, such as the NIH3T3, Neuro-2a, 293T, and HT1080 cell lines, and was only slightly weaker than the HCMV promoter in HeLa and CHO cells. The inclusion of the human ${\beta}$-globin second intron behind the MCMV promoter or HCMV promoter markedly enhanced the promoter activity in various mammalian cell lines, and the resultant MCMV/Glo-I expression system was stronger than the HCMV promoter from 4.7- to 11.2-fold in every cell line tested. Also, the MCMV/Glo-I promoter induced a higher level of the VSV-G protein in a transiently transfected 293T cell line, which is useful for the production of recombinant retrovirus and lentivirus vectors.

• BMB Reports
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.586-592
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• 2003

Four putative promoters of the temperate mycobacteriophage L1 were cloned by detecting the $\beta$-galactosidase reporter expression in E. coli transformants that carried L1 specific operon-fusion library. All of the four L1 promoters were also found to express differentially in the homologous environment of mycobacteria. Of the four promoters, two were suggested to be the putative early promoters of L1 since they express within 0 to 10 min of the initiation of the lytic growth of L1. One of the putative early promoters showed a relatively better and almost identical activity in both E. coli and M. smegmatis. By a sequence analysis, we suggest that the L1 insert that contained the stronger early promoter possibly carries two convergent E. coli $\sigma^{70}$-like L1 promoters, which are separated from each other by about 300 nucleotides. One of them is the early promoter of L1 as it showed a 100% similarity with the early $P_{left}$ promoter of the homoimmune phage L5. The second promoter, designated P4, was suggested for its appreciable level of reporter activity in the absence of the -10 element of the $P_{left}$ equivalent of L1. By analyzing most of the best characterized mycobacteriophages-specific promoters, including the L1 promoter P4, we suggest that both the -10 and -35 hexamers of the mycobacteriophage promoters are highly conserved and almost similar to the consensus -10 and -35 hexamers of the E. coli $\sigma^{70}$ promoters.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.208-213
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• 2002

The human polyomavirus JC virus is the etiologic agent of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). As the JC virus early promoter directs cell-specific expression of the viral replication factor large T antigen, transcriptional regulation constitutes a major mechanism of glial tropism in PML. It has been demonstrated that SV4O or JC virus large T antigen interacts with p53 protein and regulates many viral and cellular genes. In this study we founts that p53 represses the JC virus early promoter in both glial and nonglial cells To identify the cis-regulatory elements responsible for p53-mediated repression, deletional and site-directed mutational analyses were performed . Deletion of the enhancer region diminished p53-mediated transcriptional repression. However, point mutations of several transcription factor binding sites in the basal promoter region did not produce any significant changes. In support of this observation, when the enhancer was fused to a heterologous promoter, p53 red reduced the promoter activity about three fold. These results indicate that the enhancer region is important for tole repression of JC virus transcription by p53. Furthermore, coexpression of JC virus T antigen with a p53 protein abolished p53-mediated repression of the JC virus early promoter in non-glial cells, but not in glial cells. This finding suggests that T antigen interacts with p53 and regulates JC virus transcription in a cell-specific manner.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.21 no.10
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• pp.1466-1472
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• 2011

We characterized embryo early gene (EEG)-704 promoter of the silkworm Bombyx mori, which is specifically regulated in the development stages. To determine core promoter region, 10 different partial mutant clones were tested by luciferase assay in Sf9 cells. About 1.5 kb promoter shows higher luciferase activity than constitutive promoter (BmA3). Interestingly, EEG-704 shares the same DNA sequences with BmHsp20.8 by the result of BLAST analysis; its expression is also increased under heat shock condition. Development of such promoter inducible, directly or indirectly in the developmental-stage, is very useful in making recombinant proteins in transgenic silkworms.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.21-24
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• 1991

The promoter isolated from an alkali-tolerant Hwillus sp. chromosomal DNA was subcluned. The activity of promoter in B, subtilis and alkali-tolerant Bacillus sp. began to increase at the early stage. of spore formation. In the presence of 1% glucose, the promotcr activity repressed and was recovered by ;tddition of c-GMP in the medium.

• The Korean Journal of Zoology
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.550-556
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• 1995

The c-myc proto-oncogene is Involved In the control of normal cell proliferation and differentiation of many cell lineages. Although it has heen suggested that c-myc may play an important role in the mammalian early development, it Is unclear whether the embryonic c-myc mRNA is originated from zygotic gene expression or stored maternal message. Thus, we have construded expression vectors, In which the 5, flanking sequences including c-myc promoter region and a large non-coding exon I are fused 'sith E. coli lacZ gene that encedes $\beta$-galactosldase as a reporter. As c-myc exon I contains a modulatory sequence, we designed t, vo types of vectors (pcmyc.Gall and pcmyc-Ga12) to examine the role of exon I in c-myc expression. The former contains the complete exon I and the later has a deletion in 40 bp of modulator sequence located In the exon I of c-myc These vectors were microInjected into fertilized one-cell embryos and $\beta$-galactosidase activity was examined by X-gal staining during early embryogenesis. $\beta$-galactosidase activity derived from c-myc promoter was decreased at two-cell stage. The expression level directed by pcmyc- Ga12 was similar to that of pcmyc-Gal1, indicating that the medulatory sequence in exon I may not be Involved at least In the regulation of embryonic c-myc expression. In summary, the present study indicates that the c-myc promoter is functional at the early stage embryo, and the regulation of c-myc expression is under the control of "zygotic" clock of preimplantation mouse embryos.e embryos.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1599-1603
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• 2015

Background: Epigenetic silencing of tumor suppressor genes due to promoter hypermethylation is one of the frequent mechanisms observed in cancers. Hypermethylation of several tumor suppressor genes involved in cell cycle regulation has been reported in many types of tumors including oral squamous cell carcinomas. LATS1 (Large Tumor Suppressor, isoform 1) is a novel tumor suppressor gene that regulates cell cycle progression by forming complexes with the cyclin dependent kinase, CDK1. Promoter hypermethylation of the LATS1 gene has been observed in several carcinomas and also has been linked with prognosis. However, the methylation status of LATS1 in oral squamous cell carcinomas is not known. As oral cancer is one of the most prevalent forms of cancer in India, the present study was designed to investigate the methylation status of LATS1 promoter and associate it with histopathological findings in order to determine any associations of the genetic status with stage of differentiation. Materials and Methods: Tumor chromosomal DNA isolated from biopsy tissues of thirteen oral squamous cell carcinoma biopsy tissues were subjected to digestion with methylation sensitive HpaII enzyme followed by amplification with primers flanking CCGG motifs in promoter region of LATS1 gene. The PCR amplicons were subsequently subjected to agarose gel electrophoresis along with undigested amplification control. Results: HpaII enzyme based methylation sensitive PCR identified LATS1 promoter hypermethylation in seven out of thirteen oral squamous cell carcinoma samples. Conclusions: The identification of LATS1 promoter hypermethylation in seven oral squamous cell carcinoma samples (54%), which included one sample with epithelial dysplasia, two early invasive and one moderately differentiated lesions indicates that the hypermethylation of this gene may be one of the early event during carcinogenesis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to have explored and identified positive association between LATS1 promoter hypermethylation with histopathological features in oral squamous cell carcinomas.

• BMB Reports
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• v.55 no.11
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• pp.553-558
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• 2022

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is dangerous cancer that often evades early detection because it is asymptomatic and an effective detection method is lacking. For people with chronic liver inflammation who are at high risk of developing HCC, a sensitive detection method for HCC is needed. In a meta-analysis of The Cancer Genome Atlas pan-cancer methylation database, we identified a CpG island in the USP44 promoter that is methylated specifically in HCC. We developed methylation-sensitive high-resolution melting (MS-HRM) analysis to measure the methylation levels of the USP promoter in cell-free DNA isolated from patients. Our MS-HRM assay correctly identified 40% of patients with early-stage HCC, whereas the α-fetoprotein test, which is currently used to detect HCC, correctly identified only 25% of early-stage HCC patients. These results demonstrate that USP44 MS-HRM analysis is suitable for HCC surveillance.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.50-55
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• 2003

Background: An aberrant function of the mismatch repair system has been reported to underlie carcinogenesis in several tumors, including colorectal and gastric carcinomas, and to induce the typical genotype of microsatellite instability (MSI). Purpose: We aimed to determine the frequency of MSI in early-onset sporadic gastric carcinoma and elucidate the role of promoter methylation in hMLH1 as the mechanism of MSI. Materials and Methods: Thirty-six early-onset sporadic gastric carcinomas were analyzed to determine the status of MSI and the frequency of methylation of the promoter region in hMLH1. MSI was determined using five markers recommended by NCI: MSI-H (high), MSI-L (low), and MSS (Microsatellite stable). Methylation specific PCR (MSP) and direct automated genomic sequencing analysis with DNA modified by sodium bisulfite have been performed to confirm promoter region methylation. All the data were analyzed regarding characteristics of molecular changes, and clinicopathologic variables. Results: The microsatellite status was determined as MSI-H in five cases ($13.8\%$), MSI-L in 13 cases ($36.1\%$), and MSS in 18 cases ($50.0\%$). hMLH1 was methylated in seven cases ($19.4\%$). In all cases of MSI-H, promoter of hMLH1 was methylated, and in two of the 13 cases of MSI-L, hMLH1 promoter methylation was identified. Methylation was not found in any cases of MSS. Promoter methylation in hMLH1 was significantly correlated with MSI status (P<0.001). We could not find any relationship between MSI and clinicopathologic parameters. Conclusion: These results suggest that an abnormal function of the mismatch repair system may be associated with gastric carcinogenesis in more than $10\%$ of early-onset gastric carcinomas and MSI appeared to be closely related to the promoter methylation in hMLH1.