The cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27
Kip1 plays an important role in regulating cell cycle progression by inhibiting the cyclin-Cdk complexes responsible for promoting the transition from G1-phase to S-phase [
1,
2]. In normal cells, p27
Kip1 levels are high in GO and decrease rapidly in late G1 allowing entry into S-phase [
3,
4]. p27
Kip1 has also been implicated as playing a role in tumor formation and progression.
p27Kip1 knockout mice display internal organ hyperplasia and are highly prone to pituitary adenomas [
5-
7]. In human cancers, such as breast [
8], prostate [
9], colorectal [
10], and others, low levels of p27
Kip1 expression correlate with decreased survival rates. Since mutations of the
p27Kip1 gene are rare in cancer cells [
11], loss of p27
Kip1 must involve changes in the mechanisms that control its expression.
Changes in the levels of cellular p27
Kip1 are regulated by multiple mechanisms. In general, transcriptional control of the
p27Kip1 gene is believed to play a minor role in regulating p27
Kip1 expression. However, recent reports indicate that transcription of the
p27Kip1 gene can be activated by neuronal differentiation [
12], treatment with vitamin D3 [
13,
14], interferon and cytokines [
15-
17], and exposure to hypoxic conditions [
18] or xenobiotics [
19]. Transcription of the
p27Kip1 gene can be negatively regulated by growth factors [
20] and by c-Myc [
21]. Some of the growth factor and cytokine effects on
p27Kip1 transcription may be mediated by the forkhead family of transcription factors that appear to be regulated downstream of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signaling pathway [
22-
25]. The use of alternative promoters leading to multiple transcription start sites, as reported here, suggests an additional type of transcriptional control.
Post-transcriptional controls appear to be the major regulatory mechanisms that determine the levels of p27
Kip1 in the cell [
26]. These include ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation [
27] and sequestration and mislocalization [
28] of the p27
Kip1 protein. In addition, changes in the rate of
p27Kip1 mRNA translation have been shown to be important in regulating cellular p27
Kip1 levels. The rate of
p27Kip1 mRNA translation is higher in quiescent cells than in growth factor stimulated cells [
3]. p27
Kip1 translation is also enhanced during differentiation of HL60 cells [
29].
Recent studies have shown that elements within the 5' untranslated region (5'-
UTR) of the
p27Kip1 mRNA are able to enhance translational efficiency [
30,
31] and several proteins that bind to the 5'-
UTR have been identified [
31]. The mouse
p27Kip1 5'-
UTR has recently been shown to be able to mediate cap-independent initiation of translation [
30]. In addition, a U-rich element within the
p27Kip1 5'-
UTR may be involved in regulating
p27Kip1 mRNA stability [
32]. Together, these findings clearly demonstrate the importance of the 5'-
UTR in controlling cellular p27
Kip1 levels. However, from the work published to date it is not clear what sequences constitute the full
p27Kip1 5'-
UTR in either human or mouse.
The 5' end of the
UTR is determined by the site of transcription initiation and several papers have reported putative
p27Kip1 transcription initiation sites. In mouse, Kwon et al. [
33] reported a major transcription start site 200 nucleotides upstream of the AUG start codon. They also reported a second transcription initiation site 253 nucleotides upstream of the start codon. In contrast, Zhang and Lin [
34] reported that the mouse
p27Kip1 transcription start site is ~500 nucleotides upstream of the start codon. They found no evidence for the downstream initiation sites reported by Kwon et al. [
33]. The gene sequences upstream of the
p27Kip1 start codon, including the putative promoter regions, are highly conserved between mouse and human. However, it has been reported that the
p27Kip1 transcription start site in human cells is only 153 nucleotides upstream of the AUG start codon [
31,
35]. In contrast to these findings, Ito et al. [
36] reported multiple start sites in the region from 403 to 479 nucleotides upstream of the AUG as well as minor sites 280 and 273 nucleotides upstream of the AUG. Thus, for both mouse and human
p27Kip1 genes there are discrepancies between the reported transcription start sites. In addition, despite the high level of conservation in
p27Kip1 gene sequences, the reports in the literature show no correlation between mouse and human initiation sites, which would result in very different 5'-
UTRs in the final
p27Kip1 mRNAs.
Given the importance of the 5'-UTR in governing p27Kip1 levels and the disparity among the reports described above, we felt it necessary to further investigate the p27Kip1 gene transcription initiation sites. We have used a method that accurately identifies the capped 5'-end of mRNAs together with RNase protection assays. Our data indicate that the major transcription start site is at exactly the same sequence in mouse and human cells and that transcription initiation from this site produces a p27Kip1 5'-UTR of 502 nucleotides in mouse and 472 nucleotides in human. These findings represent important sequence information relevant to studies being done on both transcriptional and post-transcriptional control of p27Kip1 levels.