Tissue-specific expression and dietary regulation of chimeric mitochondrial 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A synthase/human growth hormone gene in transgenic mice.

We have studied the role of the mitochondrial 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl CoA (HMG-CoA) synthase gene in regulating ketogenesis. The gene exhibits expression in various tissues and it is regulated in a tissue-specific manner. To investigate the underlying mechanisms of this expression, we linked a 1148-base-pair portion of the mitochondrial HMG-CoA synthase promoter to the human growth hormone (hGH) gene and analyzed the expression of the hGH reporter gene in transgenic mice. mRNA levels of hGH were observed in liver, testis, ovary, stomach, colon, cecum, brown adipose tissue, spleen, adrenal glands, and mammary glands from adult mice, and also in liver and stomach, duodenum, jejunum, brown adipose tissue, and heart of suckling mice. There was no expression either in kidney or in any other nonketogenic tissue. The comparison between these data and those of the endogenous mitochondrial HMG-CoA synthase gene suggests that the 1148 base pairs of the promoter contain the elements necessary for expression in liver and testis, but an enhancer is necessary for full expression in intestine of suckling animals and that a silencer prevents expression in stomach, brown adipose tissue, spleen, adrenal glands, and mammary glands in wild type adult mice. In starvation, transgenic mice showed higher expression in liver than did wild type. Both refeeding and insulin injection reduced the expression. Fat diets, composed in each case of different fatty acids, produced similar expression levels, respectively, to those found in wild type animals, suggesting that long-, medium-, and short-chain fatty acids may exert a positive influence on the transcription rate in this 1148-base-pair portion of the promoter. The ketogenic capacity of liver and the blood ketone body levels were equal in transgenic mice and in nontransgenic mice.