Augmentation of human T cell leukaemia virus type I Tax transactivation by octamer binding sites

The human T cell leukaemia virus type I (HTLV-1) Tax protein is an activator of viral and cellular gene expression. Tax does not bind DNA directly, but does interact with cellular DNA binding proteins. These interactions bring Tax to a specific group of promoters and may help to determine the specificity of Tax transactivation. Previous studies have demonstrated that the activity of Tax, when tethered to a given promoter, is enhanced by the presence of adjacent transcription factor binding sites. To examine the specificity of this augmentation, a series of transcription factor binding sites was tested for the ability to enhance the activity of a Gal-Tax fusion protein. The greatest increase in Gal-Tax activity was observed when an octamer binding site was placed adjacent to the Gal4 binding sites. However, the octamer binding site failed to independently function as a Tax responsive element in the absence of an adjacent Tax-tethering element. Oct-2 was not required for augmentation of Gal-Tax activity as this enhancement was observed in BHK-21 cells, which lack Oct-2. The ability of octamer binding sites to augment transcription was specific for Gal-Tax, as compared to other transactivators. Taken together, these results demonstrate that the degree of Tax transactivation can be influenced by the elemental composition of the target promoter.