The second intron of the human galectin-3 gene has a strong promoter activity down-regulated by p53.

Galectin-3 is a galactose-specific lectin which has been shown to be involved in several biological functions such as cell growth regulation, cell aggregation and cell differentiation. The partial cloning of the human genomic sequences reveals the presence of a 651 bp intron, 18 bp downstream of the translation initiation site. This intron contains several regulatory elements found in many eukaryotic genes.

A negative regulatory element of the macrophage-specific human mannose receptor gene represses its expression in nonmyeloid cells.

We have cloned the putative promoter of the human mannose receptor gene using the ligation-mediated polymerase chain reaction. This modified polymerase chain reaction method depends upon the ligation of restricted genomic DNA fragments to a sequence of DNA containing a generic primer site. Approximately 400 bp of genomic DNA sequence immediately upstream from the 5' end of the lectin gene was amplified with this strategy.