Departamento de Microbiologia, Imunologia e Parasitologia, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, UNIFESP, Rua Botucatu 862, CEP 04023-062 São Paulo, Brazil.
Acta Trop. 2012 Sep;123(3):230-3. doi: 10.1016/j.actatropica.2012.03.014. Epub 2012 May 8.
Gene expression in Trypanosoma cruzi is regulated at the post-transcriptional level and cis-acting elements present in the 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) play an important role by interacting with regulatory proteins. Previous studies demonstrated that the GP82 surface glycoprotein, which is involved in host cell invasion, is up-regulated in the infective metacyclic trypomastigote form, and that GP82 mRNA half-life is longer in this form compared to the non-infective epimastigote form. Here, we demonstrate that the 3'UTR of the GP82 transcript is involved in this developmental regulation, promoting higher expression of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter in metacyclic trypomastigotes than in epimastigotes. A series of stepwise deletions in the 3'UTR was created and results suggest that the mechanism regulating GP82 expression involves multiple elements in the 3'UTR.
在克氏锥虫中，基因表达受到转录后水平的调控，而 3'非翻译区 (3'UTR) 中的顺式作用元件通过与调节蛋白相互作用，发挥着重要作用。先前的研究表明，参与宿主细胞入侵的表面糖蛋白 GP82 在感染性的循环体形式中上调，并且与非感染性的滋养体形式相比，GP82 mRNA 的半衰期在这种形式中更长。在这里，我们证明了 GP82 转录本的 3'UTR 参与了这种发育调控，使得 GFP 报告基因在循环体中的表达高于滋养体。对 3'UTR 进行了一系列逐步缺失，结果表明，调节 GP82 表达的机制涉及 3'UTR 中的多个元件。
