Regulation of the human mitotic centromere-associated kinesin (MCAK) promoter by the transcription factors Sp1 and E2F1

To understand transcriptional regulation of the human mitotic centromere-associated kinesin (MCAK) promoter, the 1,151-bp promoter region of the human MCAK gene in Jurkat T cells was cloned by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Although a bioinformatic analysis of the promoter sequence predicted several putative transcription factor binding sites for E2F, Sp1, c-Myb, p53, p300, NF-1, AML-1a, Ap-1, E-box factor, and C/EBPα/β with no consensus TATA-box motif, deletion constructs of the promoter region revealed that the core positive promoter activity resided at − 266/− 66, containing three GC-motifs for binding Sp1. Site-directed disruption and chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis indicated that Sp1-binding to the GC-motifs was crucial for promoter activation, but the E2F1-binding to the E2F-motif (− 57/− 50) was crucial for promoter repression. Cotransfection of the luciferase reporter with either Sp1- or E2F1-expression plasmid further verified the role of Sp1 as a transcriptional activator and E2F1 as a transcriptional repressor in the human MCAK promoter.