Activating Mutation of GSα in McCune-Albright Syndrome Causes Skin Pigmentation by Tyrosinase Gene Activation on Affected Melanocytes

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Abstract

McCune-Albright syndrome (MAS) is a sporadic disease characterized by café-au-lait spots, polyostotic fibrous dysplasia and hyperfunctional endocrinopathies. To elucidate the mechanism of skin pigmentation, melanocytes, keratinocytes and fibroblasts were primary cultured from the café-au-lait spot of a MAS patient. Then, mutational analysis and morphologic evaluation were performed. Also, cAMP level and tyrosinase gene expression in cultured cells were determined. Only Gsα mutation was found in affected melanocytes and the cAMP level in affected melanocytes was higher than that of normal melanocytes. The mRNA expression of tyrosinase gene was increased in the affected melanocytes. This study suggests that skin pigmentation of MAS results from activating mutation of Gsα in melanocytes and the mechanism involves the c-AMP-mediated tyrosinase gene activation.

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A transcription activator with restricted tissue distribution regulates cell-specific expression of alpha1(XI) collagen.

A Kinoshita, P Greenwel, S. Tanaka … (1997)

Different regulatory programs are likely to control expression of the alpha1(XI) collagen (COL11A1) gene in cartilaginous and non-cartilaginous tissues and in coordination with different collagen genes. Here, we report the identification of a cis-acting element that is required for constitutive and tissue-specific activity of the proximal COL11A1 promoter. The element binds an apparently novel activator whose expression is restricted mostly, but not exclusively, to cells of mesenchymal origin. Transient transfection experiments using wild-type and mutant constructs demonstrated the critical contribution of a 45-base pair upstream element (FP9) to promoter activity. The same functional tests and DNA binding assays narrowed down the critical portion of FP9 to a 20-base pair sequence, which consists of an imperfect palindrome with strong homology to the GATA consensus motif. Despite being able to bind GATA proteins in vitro, FP9 is actually recognized by a distinct approximately 100-kDa polypeptide (FP9C) probably belonging to the zinc-finger family of transcription factors. FP9C binding was mostly identified in nuclei from cells of mesenchymal origin, including those actively engaged in COL11A1 transcription. A positive correlation was also established between the level of FP9C binding and the degree of cell differentiation in vitro. Thus, FP9C represents an unusual example of tissue-specific and differentiation-related transcription factor with overlapping expression in hard and soft connective tissues.