Fig. 5

VD3 responsiveness of candidate VDRE upon transient transfection. The schematic structure of the proximal region of the human UCP3 promoter is shown; nucleotides are numbered relative to the transcriptional start site (TSS). The number below the top line denotes the position of the putative VDRE in the UCP3 promoter as follows; -2200; ①, -2043; ②, -1867; ③, -1561; ④, -634; ⑤, -595; ⑥, -80; ⑦, -1; ⑧, +162; ⑨, and +314; ⑩. Each truncated UCP3-pro-luc reporter construct and CMX-hVDR were co-transfected into HEK-293 cells and relative luciferase activity was compared. a Error bars represent SD from at least three experiments. n = 3. Compared with the control, *; P < 0.05, ***; P < 0.005. Solid boxes represent putative VDRE with high sequence similarity to the positive control (more than 80 %). Shadow boxes represent those with medium similarity (more than 70 %), open boxes represent those with relatively low similarity (more than 60 %) to the positive control. b As a positive control for VD3 responsiveness, we used the mouse osteopotin VDRE (AGGTCAcgaAGGTCA). Relative luciferase activity of each putative VDRE-luc-reporter construct compared to the positive control. Each value is expressed as mean ± SD from at least three experiments. Both designated nucleotide number relative to the TSS and sequential number is shown of the putative VDREs examined. *; P < 0.05 compared to the positive control