Cloning and partial characterization of the promoter for the human p55 tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor

An 809-bp region at the 5' flank of the human p55 tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNF-R)-encoding gene was found to be active in driving expression of the cat reporter gene, indicating that it contains a functional promoter. Deletion analysis showed that the promoter activity is present in the region between nucleotides (nt) -385 and -207; the sequence upstream from this region (nt -809 to -385) has an inhibitory effect. The promoter for the p55 TNF-R resembles housekeeping-type promoters in that it drives transcription from multiple start points (tsp) and lacks canonical TATA and CAAT box motifs. The cluster of tsp lies in a region which is particularly C+T rich. In this region, upstream from and near to the furthest upstream tsp, two closely located TCC repeat motifs were identified. These motifs also appear twice in the promoter for the epidermal growth factor receptor, where they were shown to be essential for promoter activity. The human p55 TNF-R promoter shows an overall resemblance, yet also some marked dissimilarities, to the recently described promoter for the mouse p55 TNF-R.