Figure 4

In silico analysis of putative transcription factor binding sites within the mouse Smtnl1 promoter region. In (A), a comparative analysis of mammalian Smtnl1 promoter regions was completed. The promoter sequences were aligned using CLUSTALW and Genedoc. The sequence similarities are: black, 100%; dark grey, 99 - 80%; light grey, 80 - 60%; and white, 60 - 0% conservation. The NCBI-predicted TSS of mouse (1), dog (2) and cow (3) Smtnl1 genes as well as the newly defined murine TSS (4) and distance from the promoter to the start codon (ATG) are indicated. The highly conserved region was further investigated in (B). The Smtnl1 sequence located immediately upstream of the newly defined TSS (indicated by bold arrow; downstream sequence in bold) was investigated for putative transcription factor binding sites as indicated. The grey box outlines the mirror repeat sequence (MRS). The dashed line shows the NCBI-derived TSS. The underlined region highlights the Smtnl1 promoter sequence that strongly enhanced luciferase reporter activity, and "*" indicate 10 nucleotide sections of sequence.