Transcriptional activation by human c-myb and v-myb genes

The human c-myb proto-oncogene is the cellular progenitor of the viral v-myb oncogene and codes for a 75 kD protein involved in growth regulation and differentiation in a number of cells. Fusion proteins in which human c-myb sequences are linked to the DNA binding domain of the yeast transcriptional activator GAL4 can activate transcription from a reporter gene which carries the chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (CAT) gene linked in cis to a repeat of the GAL4 binding site. Deletions of carboxyterminal sequences allowed the identification of the domain responsible for transcriptional activation, which is located between amino acid residues 275 to 327. Deletion of this activator domain results in abrogation of the transcriptional activation. The GAL4-v-myb fusion protein can also activate transcription whereas no transactivation by GAL4-c-myb is observed, indicating that a carboxyterminal domain of c-myb which is absent from v-myb apparently negatively regulates transcriptional activation. Dimer formation which is required for transactivation by GAL4 fusion proteins can, when GAL4 is truncated, be mediated by a region of the c-myb protein upstream of the transactivator domain possibly including the transactivator domain itself but not a putative leucine zipper located downstream of this region.