Of note, the primer set employed for the assay with THI4 was position C (Fig. 1a) different from that (position B) for the assay for V5-tagged Pdc2p, and the pdc2Δ mutant was used instead of strain thi2Δ. We confirmed that the protein level of thi2p was also unchanged by the experimental conditions (data not shown). As expected,

V5-tagged Thi2p coimmunoprecipitated with all the THI genes except PDC5 (Fig. 1d). The association with the target DNA was also decreased by thiamin in the medium and the absence of Thi3p or, in this case, Pdc2p. These findings strongly suggest that both Pdc2p and Epigenetic screening Thi2p alone can bind target DNA and assist each other in recruitment to the THI promoters via interaction with Thi3p. We next intended to map the DNA-binding domain MAPK inhibitor in Pdc2p. Pdc2p is 925 amino acids (aa) long with an internal (aa 407–581) transactivation domain and C-terminal (aa 668–889) Thi3p-interacting domain (Nosaka et al., 2008). In addition, Pdc2p possesses putative DNA-binding

domains at the N-terminus. We constructed plasmids to produce a truncated Pdc2p with a V5-tag and used them in ChIP assays. As expected from the presumed sequence, when the N-terminal 406 aa were removed, no association with THI genes and PDC5 was detected (Fig. 1e). Conversely, V5-tagged Pdc2p(1–406) coimmunoprecipitated with all the genes tested, although very weakly as compared with intact Pdc2p (Fig. 1e). In particular, its association with THI genes was markedly reduced. The Rucaparib nmr elimination of the first ten N- or C-terminal aa from Pdc2p(1–406) led to abolishment of the ChIP signal (data not shown). Thus, the 1–406 aa region is necessary for Pdc2p to bind with target

DNA. However, this region alone may not be adequate to exert full binding activity. Alternatively, because of a lack of the Thi3p-interacting domain (Nosaka et al., 2008), it is assumed that the recruitment of Pdc2p(1–406) to the promoter regions of THI genes was decreased. Meanwhile, we attempted to locate the promoter region responsible for the expression of PDC5. Although two ethanol-repression sequence (ERA) sites are recognized in the upstream region of PDC5 (Liesen et al., 1996), it is unclear whether these cis-acting elements are involved in the induction of PDC5 gene expression in response to thiamin starvation. We constructed a series of plasmids containing terminal and internal deletions of the PDC5 promoter and used the β-galactosidase activity to monitor their promoter activities. The results are summarized in Fig. 2. The LacZ gene with PDC5′s upstream region truncated at position −418 from the start codon conferred almost full promoter activity. However, the upstream region truncated at position −390 showed significantly less promoter activity, and that at position −345 barely showed any activity. Furthermore, the deletion of the upstream region from −397 to −346 almost completely abolished the activity.