Regulatory elements of the human vimentin gene : activation during proliferation

We investigated the constitution of the vimentin regulatory region through the use of cloned deletion mutants and the nucleotide sequence analysis in order to determine the elements which are implicated in the various physiological stimulations. We report that the vimentin promoter is constituted of a juxtaposition of at least 20 different putative regulatory elements illustrating the molecular tinkering theory. Fifty-eight motifs were found, representing 20 different sequences. Each of these mini-elements displays a consensus sequence homologous to or closely related to that found in regulatory regions of different genes correlated with processes of cell activation and proliferation.