Functional characterization of the promoter region of the mouse protein kinase C gamma gene

Abstract

Promoter activity of protein kinase C (PKC) gamma gene was analysed by chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) assay using extracts from the cells transfected with various fusion constructs containing the 5'-flanking region of the mouse PKC gamma gene and CAT gene. Transient expression experiments in PC12 cells revealed that the upstream region of 87 bp from the transcriptional initiation site was sufficient for promoter activity. The region containing nucleotides 87 upstream from the transcriptional initiation site was shown to silence CAT activity in Balb/c3T3 cells, in which mRNA of PKC gamma was not detected, suggesting that this region might contain a transcriptional regulatory element for the cell type-specific expression of the PKC gamma gene.