CO(2)-Responsive Transcriptional Regulation of CAH1 Encoding Carbonic Anhydrase Is Mediated by Enhancer and Silencer Regions in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii adapts to the stress of CO(2)-limiting conditions through the induction of a set of genes including CAH1, which encodes a periplasmic carbonic anhydrase. CAH1 is up-regulated under low-CO(2) conditions (air containing 0.04% [v/v] CO(2)) in the presence of light, whereas it is down-regulated under high-CO(2) conditions (5% [v/v] CO(2)) or in the dark. In an effort to identify cis-elements involved in the transcriptional regulation of CAH1, a series of 5′-nested deletions of the region upstream of CAH1 were fused to a promoterless arylsulfatase reporter gene (ARS). The upstream region from −651 to +41 relative to the transcription start site was sufficient to regulate the expression of ARS with kinetics similar to those of endogenous CAH1. Deletion of the region between −651 and −294 resulted in a significant decrease in the level of arylsulfatase activity expressed under low-CO(2) conditions. The 543-bp upstream region from −651 to −109, without any promoter elements, CAAT-box, or TATA-box, could confer CO(2) and light responsiveness on the β(2)-tubulin minimal promoter. This 543-bp region was divided into two parts: a 358-bp silencer region from −651 to −294, which represses the minimal promoter activity under high-CO(2) conditions, and a 185-bp enhancer region from −293 to −109, which activates the promoter under low-CO(2) conditions in the presence of light.