Functional characterization of the promoter of carbonyl reductase 1 gene in porcine endometrial cells

Prostaglandins (PGs) play a critical role in porcine reproduction, of which prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and prostaglandin F2α (PGF2α) exert antiluteolytic and luteolysis actions, respectively. As a rate-limiting enzyme, carbonyl reductase 1 (CBR1) catalyzes the conversion of PGE2 to PGF2α. A high ratio of PGE2:PGF2α is beneficial to the establishment and maintenance of porcine pregnancy. PG is essential for the establishment of pregnancy which resembles the proinflammatory response and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) is involved in the process. Bioinformatic analysis has shown that NF-κB is a possible factor bound to two cis -regulatory elements in CBR1 promoter. In this study, we cloned the 2997 bp (−2875/+122) of the promoter, and constructed six 5'-deleted dual-luciferase reporter recombinant vectors. In endometrial cells, the region of P2 (−1640/+7) exhibited the greatest transcriptional activity at driving luciferase expression, but not significantly different from that of P1 (−2089/+7). The activity of P1, P2, and P3 (−1019/+7) was highly significantly higher than that of others ( P