TANDEM REPEAT AGGGTAGGGT IS, IN THE FISSION YEAST, A PROXIMAL ACTIVATION SEQUENCE AND ACTIVATES BASAL TRANSCRIPTION MEDIATED BY THE SEQUENCE TGTGACTG

Ribosomal protein (rp) genes in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe display two highly conserved sequence elements in the promoter region, The molecular dissection of these promoters revealed that basal transcription is not based on a TATA element, The sequence which promotes basal transcription is the conserved sequence CAGTCACA or the inverted form TGTGACTG, called the homol D box, Upstream of the homol D box a tandem repeat AGGGTAGGGT or the inverted form ACCCTACCCT appears in same promoters, called homol E, This element functions in the proximal arrangement with homol D as an activation sequence, A compilation of homol D and homol E sequences identified in other S.pombe promoters revealed that several putative polymerase II and polymerase III promoters display a homol D box or the homol E/homol arrangement.