Inhibition of human betaine-homocysteine methyltransferase expression by S-adenosylmethionine and methylthioadenosine.

ABSTRACT: BHMT (betaine-homocysteine methyltransferase) remethylates homocysteine to form methionine. SAM (S-adenosylmethionine) inhibits BHMT activity, but whether SAM modulates BHMT gene expression is unknown. Transcriptional regulation of the human BHMT is also unknown. The present study examined regulation of the human BHMT gene by SAM and its metabolite, MTA (5'-methylthioadenosine). To facilitate these studies, we cloned the 2.7 kb 5'-flanking region of the human BHMT gene (GenBank accession number AY325901). Both SAM and MTA treatment of HepG2 cells resulted in a dose- and time-dependent decrease in BHMT mRNA levels, which paralleled their effects on the BHMT promoter activity. Maximal suppression was observed with the BHMT promoter construct -347/+33, which contains a number of NF-kappaB (nu

SUBMITTER: Ou X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1698693 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature