Fig. 3

USP16 promoter activity is up-regulated by NFκB p65. (a) Schematic diagram of deletion plasmids containing different human USP16 promoter fragments in front of the firefly luciferase reporter gene of the pGL4.10 vector. (b) The deletion plasmids corresponding to pUSP16-N1, −N2, −N3, −N4, −N5 and –N6 were checked by sequencing and restriction enzyme digestion and the digested samples were analyzed on 1% or 3.5% agarose gels. Vector size is 4.2 kb and the USP16 promoter fragment insert size ranges from 69 bp to 2.2kbp. USP16 promoter deletion plasmids and pMTF-p65 or pMTF were co-transfected into (c, e) HEK293 cells and (d, f) SH-SY5Y cells with pGL4.10 as a control. After transfection for 24 h, the cells were harvested and luciferase activity was presented in relative luciferase units (RLU). The pCMV-Luc luciferase activity was used to normalize for transfection efficiency. The values represent means ± SEM. n = 3, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 by two-way ANOVA followed by post-hoc Turkey’s multiple comparisons test