Transcriptional regulation of interferon gamma gene by p300 co-activator

Interferon gamma (IFN gamma) is an important immunoreguratory protein and is secreted from CD4+, CD8+ T cells and NK cells. Expression of IFN gamma gene is regulated by either DNA-methylation or cis-elements of transcriptional factors such as AP-1, NFAT, AP-4, YY-1, ATF and GATA. At a putative ATF binding site in a promoter region of IFN gamma gene, the position from -59 to -43, is important for the IFN gamma promoter activity. Our gel-shift competition studies demonstrated that addition of antibodies against ATF-2 caused super-shifts of DNA-protein complexes. In addition, it was clarified that p300 was involved in DNA-protein complexes by in vitro "pull-down" experiments. Moreover, a co-expression of p300 and ATF-2 enhanced the promoter activity of IFN gamma gene. Thus, these results indicate that p300 and ATF-2 play critical rules in a basal transcription of IFN gamma gene in Jurkat T cells.