A cis-acting sequence, located at -450 in the promoter of the human interferon-inducible gene 6-16, binds constitutively to a nuclear protein and decreases the expression of a reporter interferon-inducible promoter.

An interferon-inducible synthetic promoter was constructed with oligonucleotides which correspond to two regions of the promoter of the human interferon-inducible gene 6-16 that interact in-vitro with nuclear proteins. Firstly, we cloned a direct repeat sequence that was necessary for interferon regulation and that interacted with a 55 kilodalton nuclear protein. 5' to the direct repeat we introduced a 45 bp long oligonucleotide located at -450 in the native 6-16 promoter that interacted in-vitro with an 80 kilodalton nuclear protein. Expression after transfection of these plasmids showed that the direct repeat is necessary for interferon-inducible control and the -450 oligonucleotide by itself has no effect on transcriptional activity while in conjunction with the direct repeat it decreased the basal and interferon-inducible transcriptional activity of the reporter promoter in human cells.