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Human uroporphyrinogen-III synthase: Genomic organization, alternative promoters, and erythroid-specific expression

  • Gerardo Aizencang
  • , Constanza Solis
  • , David F. Bishop
  • , Cecilia Warner
  • , Robert J. Desnick

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

60 Scopus citations

Abstract

Uroporphyrinogen-III (URO) synthase is the heme biosynthetic enzyme defective in congenital erythropoietic porphyria. The ~34-kb human URO-synthase gene (UROS) was isolated, and its organization and tissue-specific expression were determined. The gene had two promoters that generated housekeeping and erythroid-specific transcripts with unique 5'-untranslated sequences (exons 1 and 2A) followed by nine common coding exons (2B to 10). Expression arrays revealed that the housekeeping transcript was present in all tissues, while the erythroid transcript was only in erythropoietic tissues. The housekeeping promoter lacked TATA and SP1 sites, consistent with the observed low level expression in most cells, whereas the erythroid promoter contained GATA1 and NF-E2 sites for erythroid specificity. Luciferase reporter assays demonstrated that the housekeeping promoter was active in both erythroid K562 and HeLa cells, while the erythroid promoter was active only in erythroid cells and its acitvity was increased during heroin-induced erythroid differentiation. Thus, human URO-synthase expression is regulated during erythropoiesis by an erythroid-specific alternative promoter. (C) 2000 Academic Press.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)223-231
Number of pages9
JournalGenomics
Volume70
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Dec 2000

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