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Copper-induced binding of cellular factors to yeast metallothionein upstream activation sequences
J M Huibregtse1, D R Engelke, D J Thiele
1Department of Biological Chemistry, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor 48109-0606.
Abstract:
Copper-inducible transcription of the yeast metallothionein gene (CUP1) occurs by means of cis-acting upstream activation sequences (UAS) and trans-acting cellular factors. We have used a high-resolution chromosomal footprinting technique to detect the interaction of cellular factors with UASCUP1. Our results demonstrate that one or more cellular factors bind to UASCUP1 in a copper-inducible fashion. This copper-inducible binding is enhanced in a yeast strain that harbors several copies of the positive regulatory gene ACE1 and is not detectable in yeast cells that contain a nonfunctional (ace1-delta 1) locus. The correlation between yeast metallothionein gene activation and copper-inducible occupation of UASCUP1 sequences suggests that the binding of metallothionein transcriptional regulatory factors to cis-acting control sequences is copper-inducible.