Human nuclear protein interacting with a conservative sequence motif of Alu-family DNA repeats.

Human retrotransposons, Alu-family DNA repeats (AFRs), have variable nucleotide sequence but conservative short elements, which may have important functions, are also present. In our previous reports we have described human nuclear DNA-binding protein interacting with AFRs and evidence was presented that the protein recognizes sequence motif 5'-GGAGGC-3' which is conserved in the spacer of RNA polymerase III promoter of AFRs and in the SV40 T-antigen-dependent replication origin of AFRs. In this study it was found that double-stranded synthetic oligonucleotides containing indicated conservative sequences of AFRs actually have high-affinity binding site for HeLa nuclear protein. The data suggest that non-infected human cells contain nuclear DNA-binding protein which recognizes the conservative sequence motif of AFRs - GGAGGC.