Human tumor necrosis factor-α gene 3′ untranslated region confers inducible toxin responsiveness to homologous promoter in monocytic THP-1 cells

To better define the role of 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) on transcriptional regulation of the human tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha gene, monocytic human THP-1 cells were transfected with two TNF-alpha promoter constructs spanning base pairs -1897/-1 and -1214/-1, respectively, and linked to the rabbit beta-globin gene. Quantitative globin gene expression of chimerae was measured by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. A construct linking the chicken beta-actin promoter and a deleted portion of the beta-globin gene was cotransfected and used as internal standard. Unexpectedly, when THP-1 cells were stimulated with lipopolysaccharide or toxic shock syndrome toxin-1, gene regulation was hardly detected. In contrast, endogenous TNF-alpha gene regulation measured by the same reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction procedure was vigorous. Remarkably, ligation of 3'UTR to chimeric constructs led to a drastic drop in the basal level of chimeric gene expression, resulting in a 15- to 40-fold induction of the reporter gene. Consistently, when the TNF-alpha promoter was replaced by the cytomegalovirus early immediate promoter, gene expression was also uniformly reduced but was no longer up-regulated upon stimulation with lipopolysaccharide and toxic shock syndrome toxin-1. These data provide the first line of evidence that, in addition to its role in TNF-alpha transcript stability and translation, human TNF-alpha 3'UTR also participates in modulating gene expression at the transcriptional level.