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Transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta family members play a central role in mesoderm induction during early embryogenesis in Xenopus. Although a number of target genes induced as an immediate-early response to activin-like members of the family have been described, little is known about the molecular mechanisms involved. Our systematic analysis of the activin induction of the target gene XFKH1 reveals two regions that mediate activin-responsive transcription: one, in the first intron, is targeted directly by the activin-signalling pathway; the other, in the 5' flanking sequences, responds to activin indirectly, possibly being required for maintenance of gene expression. We demonstrate that a 107 bp region of the XFKH1 first intron acts as an enhancer and confers activin inducibility onto a minimal uninducible promoter in the absence of new protein synthesis. It bears little sequence similarity to other activin responsive sequences. We further demonstrate that overexpression of a constitutively active derivative of Xenopus Smad2 (XSmad2), which has been implicated as a component of the activin signalling pathway, is sufficient for direct activation of transcription via this enhancer. Moreover, we show that XSmad2 acts indirectly on the proximal promoter element induced by activin via an indirect mechanism. These results establish the XFKH1 intron enhancer as a direct nuclear target of the activin signalling pathway in Xenopus embryos, and provide strong new evidence that XSmad2 is a transducer of activin signals.
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