Transcriptional regulation of the chicken ASMT gene – a preliminary analysis

ABSTRACT

1. Melatonin is an indole hormone that, among its myriad biological functions, regulates circadian and seasonal rhythms in animals. The ASMT gene plays an essential role in melatonin synthesis. However, in chickens, little is known about the regulatory elements governing its transcription.

2. The following study identified the transcription start site of the chicken ASMT gene by 5’-RACE. Then, the proximal minimal promoter was identified using a series of 5′ truncations of the ASMT promoter (e.g. −3502/+17, −2698/+17, −2003/+17, −1378/+17, and −254/+17). Site-directed mutagenesis, overexpression, and electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) were applied to show that the transcription factor Oct-1 binds to the promoter region of ASMT.

3. The translation start site was located 19 bp upstream from the translational start site. The luciferase reporter assay confirmed that the core promoter of chicken ASMT gene was in the −254/+17 region. Using site-directed mutagenesis, overexpression, and EMSA, Oct-1 bound the promoter of ASMT.

4. Overall, Oct1 plays an important role in the transcriptional regulation of chicken ASMT gene.

KEYWORDS:

• Chicken
• ASMT gene
• promoter
• transcription factor
• Oct-1

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00071668.2022.2090230

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China (31872344), The Major Applied Agricultural Technology Innovation Project of Shandong Province (SD2019XM009), and the Shandong Provincial Key Project for R&D (2019LYXZ004).