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Vascular endothelial-cadherin (VE-cadherin) is a calcium-dependent adhesive molecule, exclusively and constitutively expressed in endothelial cells. Analysis of the VE-cadherin promoter fused to a reporter gene in bovine aortic endothelial cells showed three major functional regions. The proximal region alone (−139, +24) promoted nonspecific transcription; the addition of the (−289, −140) and (−2226, −1190) domains abolished transcription in fibroblasts while expression in endothelial cells remained unchanged, suggesting that fragments (−2226, +24) and longer contain the full endogenous promoter activity. To study the transcriptional specificity of the promoter region in vivo, we generated transgenic mice carrying the chimeric construct containing the (−2486, +24) region. The promoter directed reporter expression in all examined organs of adult transgenic mice. During embryonic development, transgene …