ATP citrate-lyase (ACL) is a key enzyme supplying acetyl-CoA for fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis. Its expression is drastically up-regulated when an animal is fed a low fat, high carbohydrate diet after prolonged fasting. In this report, we describe the role of sterol regulatory element-binding proteins (SREBPs) in the transactivation of the rat ACL promoter. ACL promoter activity was markedly stimulated by the overexpression of SREBP-1a and, to a lesser extent, by SREBP-2 in Alexander human hepatoma cells. The promoter elements responsive to SREBPs were located within the 55-base pair sequences from ؊114 to ؊60. The gel mobility shift assay revealed four SREBP-1a binding sites in this region. Of these four elements, the ؊102/؊94 region, immediately upstream of the inverted Y-box, and the ؊70/؊61 region, just adjacent to Sp1 binding site, played critical roles in SREBPs-mediated stimulation. The mutation in the inverted Y-box and the coexpression of dominant negative nuclear factor-Y (NF-Y) significantly attenuated the transactivation by SREBP-1a, suggesting that NF-Y binding is a prerequisite for SREBPs to activate the ACL promoter. However, the multiple Sp1 binding sites did not affect the transactivation of the ACL promoter by SREBPs. The binding affinity of SREBP-1a to SREs of the ACL promoter also was much higher than that of SREBP-2. The transactivation potencies of the chimeric SREBPs, of which the activation domains (70 amino acids of the amino terminus) were derived from the different species of their carboxyl-terminal region, were similar to those of SREBPs corresponding to their carboxyl termini. Therefore, it is suggested that the carboxyl-terminal portions of SREBPs containing DNA binding domains are important in determining their transactivation potencies to a certain promoter.
ATP citrate-lyase (ACL)1 is a cytosolic enzyme that catalyzes the cleavage of citrate into oxaloacetate and acetyl-CoA (1). In liver and adipose tissue, this enzyme plays an important role in supplying acetyl-CoA for both fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis (2). As the specific inhibition of ACL in rats significantly decreases the plasma levels of triacylglycerol and cholesterol, ACL is expected to be a potential target for hypolipidemic intervention (3, 4). The activity of ACL is mainly regulated at the level of transcription by diet regimen and insulin, like other lipogenic enzymes, such as fatty acid synthase and acetyl-CoA carboxylase (5). The sequences of the 5Ј flanking region of the ACL gene are highly conserved in humans and rats, whereas there is no homology in the regions of the 5Ј untranslated region and the first intron, suggesting that transcription is regulated in the same manner in these two species (6, 7). Although ACL plays an important role in fatty acid and cholesterol biosynthesis and is highly controlled by diet at the transcription level, studies on the structure and function of this promoter have been very limited thus far.SREBPs are the transcription factors that regulate the transcription of ma...