RESUMO
Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) is involved in the regulation of lipid and glucose homeostasis and inflammation. PPARγ expression level has been widely studied in multiple tissues; however, there are few reports of preceding attempts to produce full-length human PPARγ (hPPARγ) in cellular models, and generally, expression level is not known or measurable. We propose an alternative strategy to express recombinant hPPARγ1, using a transient transfection with an inducible Tet-On 3G system where target and reporter gene were cloned in the same open reading frame. We transiently co-transfected human embryonic kidney 293T (HEK293T) cells with pTRE-ZsGreen1-IRES2-hPPARγ1 and pCMV-TET3G for inducible expression of hPPARγ1. Relative expression of the transcript was evaluated by RT-qPCR 48 h after transfection, obtaining a high expression level of hPPARγ (530-fold change, p < 0.002) in co-transfected HEK293T cells in the presence of doxycycline (1 µg/mL); also a significantly increased production of the reporter protein ZsGreen1 (3.6-fold change, p < 0.05) was determined by fluorescence analysis. These data indicated that HEK293T cells were successfully co-transfected and it could be an alternative model for hPPARγ expression in vitro. Additionally, this model will help to validate the quantification of inducible hPPARγ expression in vivo models for future research.
Assuntos
Clonagem Molecular/métodos , Vetores Genéticos/metabolismo , PPAR gama/genética , Proteínas Recombinantes de Fusão/genética , Doxiciclina/farmacologia , Expressão Gênica/efeitos dos fármacos , Genes Reporter , Vetores Genéticos/química , Proteínas de Fluorescência Verde/genética , Proteínas de Fluorescência Verde/metabolismo , Células HEK293 , Humanos , Fases de Leitura Aberta , PPAR gama/biossíntese , Regiões Promotoras Genéticas/efeitos dos fármacos , RNA Mensageiro/genética , RNA Mensageiro/metabolismo , Reação em Cadeia da Polimerase em Tempo Real , Proteínas Recombinantes de Fusão/biossíntese , Proteínas Recombinantes/biossíntese , Proteínas Recombinantes/genética , TransfecçãoRESUMO
Here we present the establishment of an inducible system based on the dimerizable Cre recombinase (DiCre) for controlled gene expression in the protozoan parasite Leishmania. Rapamycin-induced DiCre activation promoted efficient flipping and expression of gene products in a time and dose-dependent manner. The DiCre flipping activity induced the expression of target genes from both integrated and episomal contexts broadening the applicability of the system. We validated the system by inducing the expression of both full length and truncated forms of the checkpoint protein Rad9, which revealed that the highly divergent C-terminal domain of Rad9 is necessary for proper subcellular localization. Thus, by establishing the DiCre-based inducible system we have created and validated a robust new tool for assessing gene function in Leishmania.