Multiple domains participate in distance-independent LAZ3/BCL6-mediated transcriptional repression

The LAZ3/BCL6 gene implicated in diffuse large cell lymphomas encodes a transcriptional repressor containing Krüppel-fike zinc fingers. It harbours at its N-terminus a conserved protein/protein interaction motif, the BTB/POZ domain, which is also an autonomous transcriptional repression domain. We demonstrate here using several GAL4-LAZ3/BCL6 chimeras that the BTB/POZ domain plays an important but not exclusive role as its deletion gives rise to a GAL4 chimera that mediates significant, albeit reduced, transcriptional repression. Moreover, the repressive effect mediated either by LAZ3/BCL6 or by the isolated domains occurs with unaltered efficiency even at long distance (1.6 Kbp), ruling out steric hindrance mechanisms. Finally, though the absence of a TATA box appears to weaken this activity, it is largely promoter independent. Taken together, our results demonstrate that multiple domains participate in the promoter and distance-independent LAZ3/BCL6-mediated transcriptional repression.