Background— Although inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) is known to impart powerful protection against myocardial infarction, the mechanism for this salubrious action remains unclear.

Methods and Results— Adenovirus-mediated iNOS gene transfer in mice resulted 48 to 72 hours later in increased expression not only of iNOS protein but also of heme oxygenase (HO)-1 mRNA and protein; HO-2 protein expression did not change. iNOS gene transfer markedly reduced infarct size in wild-type mice, but this effect was completely abrogated in HO-1^–/– mice. At 48 hours after iNOS gene transfer, nuclear factor-B was markedly activated. In transgenic mice with cardiomyocyte-restricted expression of a dominant negative mutant of IB (IB^S32A,S36A), both basal HO-1 levels and upregulation of HO-1 by iNOS gene transfer were suppressed. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis of mouse hearts provided direct evidence that nuclear factor-B subunits p50 and p65 were recruited to the HO-1 gene promoter (–468 to –459 bp) 48 hours after iNOS gene transfer.

Conclusions— This study demonstrates for the first time the existence of a close functional coupling between cardiac iNOS and cardiac HO-1: iNOS upregulates HO-1 by augmenting nuclear factor-B binding to the region of the HO-1 gene promoter from –468 to –459 bp, and HO-1 then mediates the cardioprotective effects of iNOS. These results also reveal an important role of nuclear factor-B in both basal and iNOS-induced expression of cardiac HO-1. Collectively, the present findings significantly expand our understanding of the regulation of cardiac HO-1 and of the mechanism whereby iNOS exerts its cardioprotective actions.

ATF5, a member of ATF/CREB family of b-ZIP transcription factors, is highly expressed in a wide variety of neoplasms and regulates cell differentiation, cell survival and apoptosis. However, the mechanism of human ATF5 transcriptional regulation has not been clarified. Here, we identified the transcription start site of the ATF5 gene, cloned its 5'-flanking region and identified the region –105 to +3 relative to the transcription start site as that having promoter activity. This region contained potential binding sites for several transcription factors, including EBF1, Sp1 and E2F1. EBF1 transcription factor binds to the ATF5 promoter and regulates the ATF5 transcription in an EBF-binding site independent manner. Thus, our studies not only provided molecular basis of ATF5 transcriptional regulation, but also identified ATF5 as a target gene of EBF1 transcription factor.