Excitotoxic brain lesion modifies binding to a USF binding site acting as a negative regulatory element in the Protease Nexin-1 promoter

The expression of the serine protease inhibitor Protease nexin-1 (PN-1)is upregulated in glial cells following different types of lesion in the nervous system. A strong negative regulatory element has been shown by the missing nucleoside technique to be a CACGTG site (E-box) in the proximal part of the PN-1 promoter. The factor binding to this site is specifically recognized by antibodies directed against the human upstream stimulatory factor (USF). Point mutations in the E-box binding site which abolish USF binding in vitro increase the transcriptional activity of the PN-1 promoter. Cotransfection of a PN-1 promoter/reporter construct together with an expression vector for human USF1 confirms the negative regulatory function of this site. Finally, we show that the binding to this USF site changed after ibotenic acid-induced lesion of the caudate putamen in the rat brain.