Abstract
Prolonged agonist stimulation of beta2-adrenergic receptors results
in receptor down-regulation, which is closely associated with a reduction
of the corresponding mRNA, an effect mediated in part by changes
in mRNA stability. Transfection experiments with human beta2-adrenergic
receptor cDNAs bearing or lacking the untranslated regions suggested
that the essential agonist sensitivity of the mRNA resides within
the 3'-untranslated region. The importance of this region was further
confirmed in gel shift experiments; cytosolic preparations from agonist-stimulated
DDT1-MF2 smooth muscle cells caused a shift of beta2-adrenergic receptor
mRNAs containing the 3'-untranslated region. Progressive 3'-terminal
truncations of the receptor cDNA led to the identification of an
AU-rich element at positions 329-337 of the 3'-untranslated region
as the responsible cis-acting element. Substitution of this motif
by cytosine residues almost completely abolished mRNA down-regulation
and inhibited the formation of the RNA-protein complex. Even though
the beta2-adrenergic receptor AU-rich element showed two U --> A
transitions compared with the recently proposed AU-rich element consensus
sequence, it revealed an almost identical destabilizing potency.
Fusion of the beta2-adrenergic receptor 3'-untranslated region to
the beta-globin coding sequence dramatically reduced the half-life
of the chimeric transcript in an agonist- and cAMP-dependent manner.
This suggests that the agonist-induced beta2-adrenergic receptor
mRNA destabilization is regulated by cAMP-dependent RNA-binding protein(s)
via a specific AU-rich element.
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