Investigation of Cis and Trans-acting Transcriptional Regulatory Factors and Signaling Pathways of Parkin

Abstract

Parkin gene is associated with the development of autosomal recessive juvenile parkinsonism (Kitada et al., 1998) which is a common form of familial Parkinson’s disease (Klein and Schlossmacher, 2006). Since Parkin has multiple cell protective effects, increasing the expression level of Parkin in the brain might be able to rescue cells in danger, which in turn might prevent or slow down the development of Parkinson’s disease (Ulusoy and Kirik, 2008). In order to increase Parkin expression, it is important to understand the transcriptional mechanisms regulating Parkin expression (Maston et al., 2006). Since human Parkin is very big (~1.4 Mb) (Asakawa et al., 2001), in this study we use the smaller Fugu parkin gene, which is an ortholog of human Parkin (Yu et al., 2005), to search for the transcriptional factors and signaling pathways regulating Parkin expression. We have cloned vertebrate constructs that allow for the monitoring of an entire genomic Fugu parkin gene tagged with a reporter (eGFP or luciferase) in mammalian cells; and have established cellular model for studying the expression. According to the “TRANSFAC” transcription factor database, as well as “TFBIND” and “TFSEARCH” softwares (Wingender et al., 1996; Heinemeyer et al., 1998; Heinemeyer et al., 1999; Tsunoda and Takagi, 1999; Akiyama 1995), potential Nrf2 binding sites are conserved in the promoters of mammalian parkin (including human Parkin and mouse parkin) and in Fugu parkin. In this study, we could not find a link between the presence of the potential Nrf2 binding site(s) in the parkin promoter and the up-regulation of parkin; and we could not find an association between the Nrf2 pathway activation and the induction of parkin under the specific experimental conditions.