Sterol-dependent transcriptional regulation of sterol regulatory element-binding protein-2

We show in this manuscript that expression of the mRNA for sterol regulatory element-binding protein-a (SREBP-2) is regulated by the cellular sterol level in cultured HeLa cells. We have cloned the 5'-flanking region of the gene encoding human SREBP-2. Characterization of this region shows the minimum 50-base pair segment, which contains a 10-base pair sterol regulatory element 1 (SRE-1) identical to the one in the human LDL receptor promoter, confers sterol responsiveness when fused to the luciferase reporter gene. Enforced expression of the truncated SREBP-2 protein (amino acid residues 1-481) also shows that this upstream segment contains the information required for transcriptional activation. The luciferase assays using mutant versions of the reporter genes reveal that the sterol dependent transcriptional regulation is mediated by two nearby motifs, the SRE-1 and the NF-Y binding site (the inverted CCAAT box, ATTGGC); the latter is reported to play a critical role in sterol dependent regulation of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A synthase and farnesyl diphosphate synthase genes (Jackson, S. M., Ericsson, J., Osborne, T. F., and Edwards, P. A. (1995) J. Biol. Chem. 270, 21445-21448), Gel mobility shift assays demonstrate that the transcription factor NF-Y truly binds to the ATTGGC sequence, These findings suggest that the activity of SREBP-2 is controlled not only post-translationally by proteolytic activation of the precursor protein but also transcriptionally by itself together with NF-Y.