Abstract

Steroid receptor coactivator-1 (SRC-1) specifically bound to the transcription factor AP-1 subunits c-Jun and c-Fos, as demonstrated by the yeast two-hybrid tests and glutathione S-transferase pull down assays. The c-Jun and c-Fos binding sites were localized to the C-terminal subregion of SRC-1 (amino acids 1101-1441) that encompasses the previously described histone acetyltransferase and receptor-binding domains. In mammalian cells, SRC-1, similar to the previous results with CBP-p300 (Arias, J., Alberts, A. S., Brindle, P., Claret, F. X., Smeal, T., Karin, M., Feramisco, J., and Montminy, M. (1994) Nature 370, 226-229; Bannister, A. J., and Kouzarides, T. (1995) EMBO J. 14, 4758-4762), potentiated the AP-1-mediated transactivations in a dose-dependent manner and derepressed the mutual inhibitions between nuclear receptors and AP-1. Furthermore, coexpression of p300 further enhanced this SRC-1-potentiated level of transactivations. Thus, we concluded that at least two distinct coactivator molecules may cooperate to regulate AP-1-dependent transactivations and mediate transrepression between AP-1 and nuclear receptors in vivo.