Faculty Opinions recommendation of Dynamic association of transcriptional activation domains and regulatory regions in Saccharomyces cerevisiae heat shock factor.

Author(s):  
David J States
1996 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 839-846 ◽  
Author(s):  
E M Newton ◽  
U Knauf ◽  
M Green ◽  
R E Kingston

Heat shock factor (HSF) activates transcription in response to cellular stress. Human HSF1 has a central regulatory domain which can repress the activity of its activation domains at the control temperature and render them heat shock inducible. To determine whether the regulatory domain works in tandem with specific features of the HSF1 transcriptional activation domains, we first used deletion and point mutagenesis to define these activation domains. One of the activation domains can be reduced to just 20 amino acids. A GAL4 fusion protein containing the HSF 1 regulatory domain and this 20-amino-acid activation domain is repressed at the control temperature but potently activates transcription in response to heat shock. No specific amino acids in this activation domain are required for response to the regulatory domain; in particular, none of the potentially phosphorylated serine and threonine residues are required for heat induction, implying that heat-induced phosphorylation of the transcriptional activation domains is not required for induction. The regulatory domain is able to confer heat responsiveness to an otherwise completely heterologous chimeric activator that contains a portion of the VP16 activation domain, suggesting that the regulatory domain can sense heat in the absence of other portions of HSF1.


1995 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 3354-3362 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Green ◽  
T J Schuetz ◽  
E K Sullivan ◽  
R E Kingston

Human heat shock factor 1 (HSF1) stimulates transcription from heat shock protein genes following stress. We have used chimeric proteins containing the GAL4 DNA binding domain to identify the transcriptional activation domains of HSF1 and a separate domain that is capable of regulating activation domain function. This regulatory domain conferred heat shock inducibility to chimeric proteins containing the activation domains. The regulatory domain is located between the transcriptional activation domains and the DNA binding domain of HSF1 and is conserved between mammalian and chicken HSF1 but is not found in HSF2 or HSF3. The regulatory domain was found to be functionally homologous between chicken and human HSF1. This domain does not affect DNA binding by the chimeric proteins and does not contain any of the sequences previously postulated to regulate DNA binding of HSF1. Thus, we suggest that activation of HSF1 by stress in humans is controlled by two regulatory mechanisms that separately confer heat shock-induced DNA binding and transcriptional stimulation.


2001 ◽  
Vol 21 (17) ◽  
pp. 5826-5837 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Kelly Sullivan ◽  
Christine S. Weirich ◽  
Jeffrey R. Guyon ◽  
Saı̈d Sif ◽  
Robert E. Kingston

ABSTRACT Chromatin remodeling complexes such as SWI/SNF use the energy of ATP hydrolysis to remodel nucleosomal DNA and increase transcription of nucleosomal templates. Human heat shock factor one (hHSF1) is a tightly regulated activator that stimulates transcriptional initiation and elongation using different portions of its activation domains. Here we demonstrate that hHSF1 associates with BRG1, the ATPase subunit of human SWI/SNF (hSWI/SNF) at endogenous protein concentrations. We also show that hHSF1 activation domains recruit hSWI/SNF to a chromatin template in a purified system. Mutation of hHSF1 residues responsible for activation of transcriptional elongation has the most severe effect on recruitment of SWI/SNF and association of hHSF1 with BRG1, suggesting that recruitment of chromatin remodeling activity might play a role in stimulation of elongation.


2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Stebbins ◽  
Steven J. Triezenberg

ABSTRACT The Hap4 protein of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae activates the transcription of genes that are required for growth on nonfermentable carbon sources. Previous reports suggested the presence of a transcriptional activation domain within the carboxyl-terminal half of Hap4 that can function in the absence of Gcn5, a transcriptional coactivator protein and histone acetyltransferase. The boundaries of this activation domain were further defined to a region encompassing amino acids 359 to 476. Within this region, several clusters of hydrophobic amino acids are critical for transcriptional activity. This activity does not require GCN5 or two other components of the SAGA coactivator complex, SPT3 and SPT8, but it does require SPT7 and SPT20. Contrary to previous reports, a Hap4 fragment comprising amino acids 1 to 330 can support the growth of yeast on lactate medium, and when tethered to lexA, can activate a reporter gene with upstream lexA binding sites, demonstrating the presence of a second transcriptional activation domain. In contrast to the C-terminal activation domain, the transcriptional activity of this N-terminal region depends on GCN5. We conclude that the yeast Hap4 protein has at least two transcriptional activation domains with strikingly different levels of dependence on specific transcriptional coactivator proteins.


1994 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 3927-3937
Author(s):  
M Kretzschmar ◽  
G Stelzer ◽  
R G Roeder ◽  
M Meisterernst

We have isolated from a crude Hela cell cofactor fraction (USA) a novel positive cofactor that cooperates with the general transcription machinery to effect efficient stimulation of transcription by GAL4-AH, a derivative of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae regulatory factor GAL4. PC2 was shown to be a 500-kDa protein complex and to be functionally and biochemically distinct from native TFIID and previously identified cofactors. In the presence of native TFIID and other general factors, PC2 was necessary and sufficient for activation by GAL4-AH. Cofactor function was specific for transcriptional activation domains of GAL4-AH. The repressor histone H1 further potentiated but was not required for activation of transcription by GAL4-AH. On the basis of the observation that PC2 exerts entirely positive effects on transcription, we propose a model in which PC2 increases the activity of the preinitiation complex in the presence of an activator, thereby establishing a specific pathway during activation of RNA polymerase II.


1994 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-199
Author(s):  
D S Pederson ◽  
T Fidrych

After each round of replication, new transcription initiation complexes must assemble on promoter DNA. This process may compete with packaging of the same promoter sequences into nucleosomes. To elucidate interactions between regulatory transcription factors and nucleosomes on newly replicated DNA, we asked whether heat shock factor (HSF) could be made to bind to nucleosomal DNA in vivo. A heat shock element (HSE) was embedded at either of two different sites within a DNA segment that directs the formation of a stable, positioned nucleosome. The resulting DNA segments were coupled to a reporter gene and transfected into the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Transcription from these two plasmid constructions after induction by heat shock was similar in amount to that from a control plasmid in which HSF binds to nucleosome-free DNA. High-resolution genomic footprint mapping of DNase I and micrococcal nuclease cleavage sites indicated that the HSE in these two plasmids was, nevertheless, packaged in a nucleosome. The inclusion of HSE sequences within (but relatively close to the edge of) the nucleosome did not alter the position of the nucleosome which formed with the parental DNA fragment. Genomic footprint analyses also suggested that the HSE-containing nucleosome was unchanged by the induction of transcription. Quantitative comparisons with control plasmids ruled out the possibility that HSF was bound only to a small fraction of molecules that might have escaped nucleosome assembly. Analysis of the helical orientation of HSE DNA in the nucleosome indicated that HSF contacted DNA residues that faced outward from the histone octamer. We discuss the significance of these results with regard to the role of nucleosomes in inhibiting transcription and the normal occurrence of nucleosome-free regions in promoters.


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