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Identification of an histone H3 acetylated/K4-methylated-bound intragenic enhancer regulatory for urokinase receptor expression

Oncogene volume 26, pages 2058–2070 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

The transcriptionally regulated urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (u-PAR) contributes to cancer progression. Although previous studies have identified multiple 5′ regulatory elements, these cis motifs cannot fully account for u-PAR expression prompting a search for hitherto uncharacterized regulatory elements. DNase I hypersensitivity and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays using u-PAR-expressing colon cancer cells indicated a hypersensitive region (+665/+2068) in intron 1 enriched with acetylated histone 3 (H3) and H3 methylated at lysine 4, markers of regulatory regions. The +665/+2068 region increased transcription from a u-PAR-promoter in an orientation- and distance-independent manner fulfilling the criteria of an enhancer. Optimal stimulation of the u-PAR promoter by phorbol ester required this enhancer. Systematic truncations combined with DNase I footprinting revealed two protected regions (+1060/+1099 and +1123/+1134) with deletion of the latter practically abolishing enhancer activity. The +1123/+1134 region harbored non-consensus activator protein-1 and Ets1 binding sites bound with c-Jun (and/or the related JunD/JunB) and c-Fos (and/or the related FosB/Fra-1/Fra-2) as revealed with chromatin immunoprecipitation. Further, nuclear extract from resected colon cancers showed elevated protein binding to a +1123/+1134-spanning probe coordinate with elevated u-PAR protein. Thus, we have defined a novel intragenic enhancer in the u-PAR gene required for constitutive and inducible expression.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by NIH grants (R01 CA58311 and DE10845) to DDB. We are grateful to Dr Chichuan Tseng for the KLF4 expression construct.

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  1. Department of Cancer Biology, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    H Wang, C Yan & D D Boyd

  2. Department of Experimental/Molecular Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    I Asangani & H Allgayer

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  2. C Yan
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Correspondence to D D Boyd.

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Wang, H., Yan, C., Asangani, I. et al. Identification of an histone H3 acetylated/K4-methylated-bound intragenic enhancer regulatory for urokinase receptor expression. Oncogene 26, 2058–2070 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1210003

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