Figure 2
Effect of allelic types of hTERT -VNTR2-2 nd in hTERT -promoter luciferase constructs. (A) The structure of the pBT304 (#1) and TR reporter constructs. The gray square indicates the hTERT promoter region. The open square represents the open reading frame of luciferase. The black squares include the VNTR polymorphic regions of hTERT-VNTR2-2nd. Five different sizes of TR (28-44 copies) were inserted in the pBT304 plasmid: pBT304 + TR28, pBT304 + TR37, pBT304 + TR39, pBT304 + TR42, and pBT304 + TR44 (#2-6). All TR-containing plasmids were constructed in both the forward and reverse directions of the reporter gene. The pBT304+2443 plasmid (#7) was made by insertion of an irrelevant 2443-bp fragment instead of TR. (B) The effects of VNTR polymorphism on hTERT gene expression in the luciferase reporter system. Four different cell lines (293T, embryonic kidney, RWPE-1, prostate, LNCap and PC-3, prostate cancer) were transfected with 12 different plasmids [#1-7, with paired forward- and reverse-TR-containing constructs (#2-6)]. * denotes statistical significance (P < 0.05).