Analysis of the Human Dopamine β‐Hydroxylase Promoter: Transcriptional Induction by Cyclic AMP

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Abstract
We have analyzed some functional aspects of the promoter of the human dopamine β-hydroxylase (DBH) gene. A fragment of 1,247 bp directly 5′ to the transcriptional start was progressively shortened, placed in front of a reporter gene, and tested in a human neuroblastoma cell line expressing DBH (SK-N-SH-TFM) and in a monkey kidney cell line (CV-1). A remarkably short region (267 bp), directly upstream from the transcription start, was sufficient to confer activity and tissue-specific expression. Furthermore, the expression of the DBH gene was shown to be inducible by cyclic AMP in SK-N-SH-TFM cells. This effect was demonstrated to occur at the transcriptional level, as shown by run-on assays, and was due to the presence of a near-consensus cyclic AMP-responsive element located in the untranscribed 5′ regulatory region of the gene.