TATA-less promoters of some Ets-family genes are efficiently repressed by wild-type p53.

p53 has been reported to repress a number of TATA-containing promoters in transient transfection assays. TATA-less promoters are generally believed to be refractive to p53 repression. We report here that the TATA-less promoters of Ets-family genes (Ets-1 and Ets-2) are efficiently repressed by wild-type but not mutant p53 in transient co-transfection assays. Moreover, p53 was immunologically detected in protein complexes formed on oligonucleotides from both the TATA-containing and TATA-less promoters. Our data suggest that p53 is involved in the regulation of the expression of both promoter types, most probably by protein-protein interaction. A model for p53 function in promoter repression is proposed.