Ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) is a major cause of acute kidney injury in both native kidneys and renal allografts. Previous studies in our lab have shown that a subset of Eph family receptor tyrosine kinases, including EphA2, is strongly and persistently upregulated in renal tubular cells in both in vitro and in vivo models of the renal IRI. Src kinases are necessary and sufficient for upregulation of EphA2. We have proposed that IRI-induced EphA2 upregulation may serve as a necessary step in renal tubular remodelling. / In this study, we have further defined the mechanism of Src kinase-induced EphA2 upregulation by identifying the -145/+137 EphA2 promoter region as the minimal region required for basal and Src kinase-induced activation of the promoter. Moreover, we have identified within this region, at position -45, a canonical cAMP response element (CRE) (Nowakowski et al.), which is essential for EphA2 promoter activation. However, we also found that the prototypical CRE-binding transcription factor, CREB, was not necessary for activation of the EphA2 promoter, suggesting that CREB-related or -unrelated transcription factors are responsible for EphA2 upregulation.

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