Construction of immortalized rat astrocyte strain by transfection of simian virus 40 large T antigen gene / 中华麻醉学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To immortalize rat astrocytes which could be used as cell carriers for transgenic cellular analgesia. Methods Astrocytes were isolated from cerebral cortex of newborn SD rats by trypsin digestion and cultured according to the method of differential cell adhesiveness and transfected with plasmid pCMVSV40T/ PUR containing the simian virus 40 large tumor antigen (SV40Tag) gene. The positive colonies were isolated by puromycin selection and expanded by many passages. The integration and expression of large T antigen gene were detected and the immuno-reactivity of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) was determined by PCR, RT-PCR and immuno-cytochemistry. Results Rat astrocytes were successfully cultured in vitro and positively stained for the astrocytic marker GFAP. The positive colonies were isolated and subcultured for 50 passages. PCR and RT-PCR products were analyzed using 1.5% agarose gel electrophoresis. The size of amplifacation product of target gene was identical to that of the positive control (558 bp) . There was no PCR and RT-PCR product from non-transfected cells. DNA sequencing and BLAST showed that 558 bp nucleotides were identical to the SV40Tag gene of the Genbank (100%). The transfected cells were positively stained for the SV40Tag and GFAP. Conclusion Immortalized rat astrocyte strain with SV40 tag gene is constructed successfully.