Development of a chromosomally integrated metabolite-inducible Leu3p-alpha-IPM "off-on" gene switch.
<h4>Background</h4>Present technology uses mostly chimeric proteins as regulators and hormones or antibiotics as signals to induce spatial and temporal gene expression.<h4>Methodology/principal findings</h4>Here, we show that a chromosomally integrated yeast 'Leu3p-alpha...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2010-08-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0012488&type=printable |
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| Summary: | <h4>Background</h4>Present technology uses mostly chimeric proteins as regulators and hormones or antibiotics as signals to induce spatial and temporal gene expression.<h4>Methodology/principal findings</h4>Here, we show that a chromosomally integrated yeast 'Leu3p-alpha-IotaRhoMu' system constitutes a ligand-inducible regulatory "off-on" genetic switch with an extensively dynamic action area. We find that Leu3p acts as an active transcriptional repressor in the absence and as an activator in the presence of alpha-isopropylmalate (alpha-IotaRhoMu) in primary fibroblasts isolated from double transgenic mouse embryos bearing ubiquitously expressing Leu3p and a Leu3p regulated GFP reporter. In the absence of the branched amino acid biosynthetic pathway in animals, metabolically stable alpha-IPM presents an EC(50) equal to 0.8837 mM and fast "OFF-ON" kinetics (t(50)ON = 43 min, t(50)OFF = 2.18 h), it enters the cells via passive diffusion, while it is non-toxic to mammalian cells and to fertilized mouse eggs cultured ex vivo.<h4>Conclusions/significance</h4>Our results demonstrate that the 'Leu3p-alpha-IotaRhoMu' constitutes a simpler and safer system for inducible gene expression in biomedical applications. |
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| ISSN: | 1932-6203 |