Regulation of human and mouse procathepsin E gene expression

Cathepsin E is an intracellular aspartic proteinase that is considered to have a number of physiological roles including antigen processing. Quantitation of procathepsin E mRNA by LightCycler(TM) technology indicated that the gene was transcribed in lung but not in kidney of both human and mouse origin. In contrast, the transcript was present in mouse spleen and alveolar macrophages but not in the counterpart tissue/cells from humans. Regulation of human and mouse procathepsin E gene expression was shown not to be influenced by the extent of CpG methylation but depended on the recognition of potential binding motifs in each promoter region by transcription factors such as GATA1, PU1 and YY1, as revealed by functional analysis using a series of promoter/luciferase reporter gene fusion constructs. Thus the extent to which the procathepsin E gene is expressed in a particular cell type may depend on the balance between the effects produced by positive-acting, cell-specific transcription factors such as GATA1 and PU1 and the negative influence of the ubiquitous YY1 factor. In this way, the relative abundance and influence of general and cell-specific transcription factors can govern the production of cathepsin E and thereby account for the sporadic cell and tissue distribution of this enzyme in different species.