Characterization of nuclear factors involved in 202 gene induction by interferon-alpha in murine leukemia cells

The 5' terminal flanking region of the interferon-inducible gene, 202, contains an interferon-stimulable response element (ISRE), called a GA box, that confers inducibility by interferon(IFN)-alpha, but not by IFN-gamma, on a reporter gene, such as the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT). Nuclear extracts from L1210 murine leukemia cells, stimulated for various periods of time with IFN-alpha, were mixed with 32P-labeled GA box and analyzed for the presence of retarded complexes in electrophoretic-mobility-shift assays. In addition to a few constitutive retarded complexes, an inducible GA box-binding activity (GAbf-1) appeared after 5 min, peaked at about 2 h, and was still abundant 12 h after IFN-alpha treatment. In the cytoplasmic fraction GAbf-1 was not detectable before 30 min, continued to increase up to 2 h, but had disappeared within 12 h. GAbf-1 activity was not observed in nuclear extracts treated with IFN-gamma, and was not inhibited by prior treatment with the protein-synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide. When the binding properties of GAbf-1 were compared with those of ISGF-3, the primary transcriptional activator for IFN-alpha-induced genes, a different pattern of retarded complexes was observed. Moreover, as observed by immunoblotting analysis, nuclear extracts from IFN-alpha-treated L1210 cells did not contain the p91/84 subunit of the ISGF3, the best characterized nuclear complex activated by IFN-alpha. Altogether these results indicate that GAbf-1 may be a novel transcription factor exploited by IFN-alpha to activate the 202 inducible gene in murine pre-B leukemia cells.