Abstract：To investigate the transcriptional regulation of pig melanocortortin-4 receptor(MC4R) gene, 5' promoter fragment (spanned from －1 264 bp to －31 bp) was amplified with PCR method and the potential transcriptional start sites were predicted with bioinformatics method; Eleven promoter segments with different length were obtained by promoter deletion analysis and cloned into PGL3-Basic vector; then the promoter activities were determined in transiently transfected pig PK15 cell by the dual-luciferase assay system. The results indicated that there was a potential transcription start site in the region from intiation codon to －682 bp. Further analysis demonstrated that the region from －514 bp to －486 bp was important for the basic transcriptional activity and bioinformatics analysis showed that there was a cis-acting element possessing a functional binding site(HSF). HSF maybe play an important role in the regulation of MC4R gene expression.
