Transcriptional regulation of hepatic angiotensinogen gene expression by the acute-phase response

The acute-phase response is a protective physiological reaction to tissue injury manifested by the immediate increase in production and secretion of liver proteins the function of which is to re-establish the homeostasis altered by injury. Such proteins include blood coagulation factors, opsonins, protease-inhibitors and angiotensinogen, a precursor of the potent vasopressor peptide angiotensin II. The angiotensinogen gene is typical of genes regulated during the acute-phase response inasmuch as the promoter regulating its transcription rate is acutely responsive to three known mediators of the acute-phase response: glucocorticoids, and the cytokines interleukin-1 and tumor necrosis factor. We present a model, based on experimental evidence, for the mechanism by which angiotensinogen gene transcription is regulated in a graded fashion by the interplay of several hormonally-inducible transcription factors that bind a hormonally-inducible enhancer unit of the angiotensinogen promoter. These factors include the glucocorticoid receptor, nuclear factor kappa B and members of the CAAT/viral enhancer (C/EBP) family of DNA-binding proteins.