Nuclear proteins from liver and kidney bind a 37 bp sequence in the 5' upstream region of the mGAT1 gene

The mouse GABA transporter (mGAT1) gene has been shown to be exclusively expressed in brain by Northern and Western blot analyses. The interactions between the 5' flanking region of the mGAT1 gene and nuclear proteins from different mouse tissues were studied by means of gel-shift assay. Our results show that nuclear protein factors from non-nervous tissues can specifically recognize a 37 bp sequence that is conserved in the 5' flanking region between the human and mouse GAT1 genes. Similar nuclear protein factors were also found to exist in rat, rabbit and pig.