[Signals and transcription factors]

The relationship between growth signals and transcriptional activator proteins was studied using polyomavirus enhancer as a probe. Transiently expressed Ha-ras gene and a tumor promoting phorbol ester, TPA, strongly stimulated the activity of polyomavirus enhancer in NIH3T3 cells. In both cases, the target of this stimulation was a 24 base pair long A core. At least two nuclear factors, PEBP1 and 2, bind to this core region. The target of stimulation in both cases was the recognition sequence of PEBP1 which is an AP1 consensus sequence. In nuclear extract of NIH3T3 cells stably transformed by Ha-ras gene, however, binding of neither PEBP1 nor PEBP2 was detected. Instead a new factor, PEBP3, emerged to share the binding site with PEBP2. PEBP3 was purified and found to be composed of 2 subunits, alpha and beta. Each of these subunits binds to the same sequence as that of PEBP3. PEBP3 binds to B core, as well as to A core. Preliminary evidence suggests that PEBP2 has an unidentified subunit in addition to alpha and beta. Proper phosphorylation required for PEBP1 for DNA binding and PEBP2 converts to PEBP3 in under-phosphorylation conditions. A repressor, PEBP4, has been identified which partly shares the recognition sequence with PEBP2. This factor is present in F9 embryonal carcinoma cells as well as in those induced to differentiate. On the other hand, neither PEBP1 nor PEBP2 were detected in F9 cells. Both of them became detectable after differentiation. Based on these results, a hypothesis was proposed for developmental regulation and alteration of such regulation in cancer cells.