Characterization of the transcriptional activation domains of human TEF3-1 (transcription enhancer factor 3 isoform 1)

TEF3-1 (transcription enhancer factor 3 isoform 1) is a human transcriptional factor, which has a N-terminal TEA/ATTS domain supposedly for DNA binding and C-terminal PRD and STY domains for transcriptional activation. Taking advantage of the efficient reporter design of yeast two-hybrid system, we characterized the TEF3-1 domains in activating gene expression. Previously study usually mentioned that the C-terminal domain of TEF3-1 has the transcriptional activity, however, our data shows that the peptides TEF3-11-66 and TEF3-1197-434 functioned as two independent activation domains, suggesting that N-terminal domain of TEF3-1 also has transcriptional activation capacity. Additionally, more deletions of amino acids 197-434 showed that only the peptides TEF3-1197-265 contained the minimum sequences for the C-terminal transcriptional activation domain. The protein structure is predicted to contain a helix-turn-helix structure in TEF3-11-66 and four β sheets in TEF3-1197-265. Finally, after the truncated fragments of TEF3-1 were expressed in HUVEC cells, the whole TEF3-1 and the two activation domains could increase F-actin stress fiber, cell proliferation, migration and targeted gene expression. Further analysis and characterization of the activation domains in TEF3-1 may broaden our understanding of the gene involved in angiogenesis and other pathological processes.