Sequence variations and promoter activities of long terminal repeats from rat intracisternal A-particles

Abstract

Nucleotide sequences of three novel rat long terminal repeats (LTR) of intracisternal A-particles (IAP) were determined and compared with two previously published solitary rat IAP LTRs from the genomic clone H12 (Furter et al. (1989) J. Biol. Chem. 264, 18276-18279) and from the upstream region of the oncomodulin (OM) gene (Banville and Boie (1989) J. Mol. Biol. 207, 481-490). These five LTRs have a length of 286 to 370 bp and show the major variability within the U3 region. The CCAAT and the TATA boxes, the AATAAA polyadenylation signals and the CA polyadenylation sites are well conserved in sequence and position in all five LTRs, whereas several putative transcriptional factor binding sites in the U3 domain show considerable heterogeneity. The transcriptional activities of three LTRs were tested in transient gene expression assays using the human growth hormone (hGH) reporter gene in chemically transformed T14c cells which produce considerable amounts of oncomodulin. Promoter strengths of the three investigated LTRs varied considerably.