Full Length Research Paper

Activity enhancement of activating transcription factor 3 by restin, a novel melanoma-associated antigen

Junqing Xu¹, Yan Xue², Zifan Lu³, Mengqi Wei¹, Haiyan Fu³, Yong Yang¹, Fan Lu³, Yousheng Wu^3* and Yi Huan^1*

¹Department of Radiology, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, 710032, China.

²Department of Oncology, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, 710032, China.

³Department of Biochemistry, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, 710032, China.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: redgem2001@163.com. Tel/Fax: +862984775421.

Accepted 13 December, 2011

   Abstract

Restin, a novel member of the melanoma-associated antigen super family, is cloned from differentiated leukemia cells induced by retinoic acid. Restin may interact with some transcription factors. The present study investigated the effect of restin on activating transcription factor 3 (ATF3), an important protein in numerous physiological situations, using the mammalian two-hybrid system. The results show that ATF3 strongly interacted with restin. To determine the effect of restin on ATF3 activity, an ATF3 reporter plasmid with a luciferase gene was constructed. Hela and NIH3T3 cells transfected with both restin and ATF3 exhibited accelerated ATF3 activity compared with those transfected with only ATF3. This result suggests the role of restin in facilitating ATF3 activity. Restin was also shown to up-regulate ATF3 activity by its interaction with the ATF3 DNA binding domain. Overall, these data suggests the involvement of restin in important cellular modulation processes in Hela and NIH3T3 cells by enhancing ATF3 activity.

Key words: Restin, MAGE, ATF3, two-hybrid system, ATF3 reporter, luciferase.