Sp1 and Sp3 regulate transcription of the chicken GAS41 gene

The 5′-flanking region of the chicken glioma-amplified sequence (GAS) 41 gene is close to the 3′ end of the lysozyme gene and contains no typical TATA box, but several GC boxes. In this study, we have localized the GAS 41 promoter to this narrow region. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays and chromatin immunoprecipitation analyses revealed that Sp1 and Sp3 bind to this promoter. Mapping by a technique of indirect end labeling demonstrated that the Sp1-binding sites contained in this region exactly co-map with two previously identified DNase I hypersensitive (HS) sites, which suggests the important role of Sp1 binding in maintaining an open chromatin structure of the GAS41 promoter. We further found that Sp1 and Sp3 strongly activate CAT expression controlled by the putative GAS41 promoter in Drosophila Schneider S2 cells and that deletion of the Sp1 sites resulted in a loss of promoter activity in chicken HD11 cells. The results indicate that transcription factors of the Sp family play an important role in the transcriptional regulation of the chicken GAS41 gene.