MCM proteins are essential for eukaryotic DNA replication, playing roles in the initiation and elongation of DNA replication. MCM proteins expression is much higher in malignant tissues than normal tissues. Several reports have indicated the usefulness of MCM proteins as markers of cancer cells in histopathological diagnosis. However, the cause of enhanced expression of MCM proteins in cancer cells remain to be clarified. The purpose of this study is to examine the relative transcriptional activities of human mcm gene promoters in cancer and normal cells. The minimal promoter region required for transcription of a luciferase reporter gene was contained an E-box and one E2F site. In addition, luciferase activities from mcm7 and mcm2 promoter/luciferase gene reporter constructs were significantly increased in cancer cells at 8 times compared with normal cells. E-box and E2F binding site in the promoter of mcm genes are responsible for different mechanism of transcription regulation on the cellular environment.