Cellular GFP Toxicity and Immunogenicity: Potential Confounders in in Vivo Cell Tracking Experiments.

Green Fluorescent protein (GFP), used as a cellular tag, provides researchers with a valuable method of measuring gene expression and cell tracking. However, there is evidence to suggest that the immunogenicity and cytotoxicity of GFP potentially confounds the interpretation of in vivo experimental data. Studies have shown that GFP expression can deteriorate over time as GFP tagged cells are prone to death. Therefore, the cells that were originally marked with GFP do not survive and cannot be accurately traced over time. This review will present current evidence for the immunogenicity and cytotoxicity of GFP in in vivo studies by characterizing these responses.

A low-toxic artificial fluorescent glycoprotein can serve as an efficient cytoplasmic labeling in living cell.

To maintain the virtue of good optical property and discard the dross of conventional fluorescent staining dyes, we provide a strategy for designing new fluorescent scaffolds. In this study, a novel fluorescent labeling glycoprotein (chitosan-poly-L-cysteine, CPC) was synthesized through graft copolymerization. CPC gives emission peak at 465-470 nm when excited at 386 nm. The submicro-scale CPC microspheres could be localized and persisted specifically in the cytoplasm of living cells, with strong blue fluorescence. Moreover, CPC was highly resistant to photo bleaching, the fluorescence was remained stable for up to 72 h as the cells grew and developed. The glycoprotein CPC was bio-compatible and in zero grade cytotoxicity as quantified by MTT assay. The fluorescent labeling process with our newly designed glycoprotein CPC is exceptionally efficient.

Evaluation of the effects of antibiotics on cytotoxicity of EGFP and DsRed2 fluorescent proteins used for stable cell labeling.

The use of fluorescent markers has proven to be an attractive tool in biological imaging. However, its usefulness may be confined by the cytotoxicity of the fluorescent proteins. In this article, for the first time, we have examined an influence of the antibiotics present in culture medium on cytotoxicity of the EGFP and DsRed2 markers used for whole-cell labeling. Results showed that doxycycline negatively affected albumin synthesis in DsRed2-expressing hepatoma cells, and that both hepatoma cells and human skin fibroblasts, labeled with this protein, were characterized by the lowered growth rates. Thus, the cytotoxic effect of fluorescent markers depends on both protein used for cell labeling and on growth conditions that may cause cell stress.

Sticky caveats in an otherwise glowing report: oligomerizing fluorescent proteins and their use in cell biology.

Fluorescent proteins from sea creatures have revolutionized the study of cell biology and signal transduction in many ways. Zacharias discusses some of the technical caveats to working with these proteins when they are fused to cellular proteins to track protein localization and interactions. Special attention is paid to problems arising from oligomerization of these fluorescent proteins and how that impacts protein interactions detected by fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET).

A complex adenovirus vector that delivers FASL-GFP with combined prostate-specific and tetracycline-regulated expression.

Cell-type-restricted transgene expression delivered by adenovirus vectors is highly desirable for gene therapy of cancer, as it can limit cytotoxic gene expression to tumor cells. However, many tumor- and tissue-specific promoters are weaker than the constitutively active promoters and are thus less effective. To combine cell-type specificity with high-level regulated transgene expression, we have developed a complex adenoviral vector. We have placed the tetracycline transactivator gene under the control of a prostate-specific ARR2PB promoter, and a mouse Tnfsf6 (encoding FASL)-GFP fusion gene under the control of the tetracycline responsive promoter. We have incorporated both expression cassettes into a single construct. We show that FASL-GFP expression from this vector is essentially restricted to prostate cancer cells, in which it can be regulated by doxycycline. Higher levels of prostate-specific FASL-GFP expression were generated by this approach than by driving the FASL-GFP expression directly with ARR2PB. More FASL-GFP expression correlated with greater induction of apoptosis in prostate cancer LNCaP cells. Mouse studies confirmed that systemic delivery of both the prostate-specific and the prostate-specific/tet-regulated vectors was well tolerated at doses that were lethal for FASL-GFP vector with CMV promoter. This strategy should be able to improve the safety and efficacy of cancer gene therapy using other cytotoxic genes as well.