Research

Comparison of bovine leukemia virus (BLV) and CMV promoter-driven reporter gene expression in BLV-infected and non-infected cells

Jerome S Harms¹ , Kurt A Eakle² , Lillian S Kuo¹ , Robert D Bremel³ and Gary A Splitter¹

¹  Department of Animal Health and Biomedical Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706-1581, USA

²  GALA Biotech, 8137 Forsythia Street, Middleton, WI 53562, USA

³  IoGenetics LLC, 3591 Anderson St., Suite 218, Madison, WI 53704, USA

author email corresponding author email

Genetic Vaccines and Therapy 2004, 2:11doi:10.1186/1479-0556-2-11

Published:	24 August 2004

Abstract

Background

Viral promoters are used in mammalian expression vectors because they generally have strong activity in a wide variety of cells of differing tissues and species.

Methods

The utility of the BLV LTR/promoter (BLVp) for use in mammalian expression vectors was investigated through direct comparison to the CMV promoter (CMVp). Promoter activity was measured using luciferase assays of cell lines from different tissues and species stably transduced with BLVp or CMVp driven luciferase vectors including D17, FLK, BL3.1 and primary bovine B cells. Cells were also modified through the addition of BLV Tax expression vectors and/or BLV infection as well as treatment with trichostatin A (TSA).

Results

Results indicate the BLV promoter, while having low basal activity compared to the CMV promoter, can be induced to high-levels of activity similar to the CMV promoter in all cells tested. Tax or BLV infection specifically enhanced BLVp activity with no effect on CMVp activity. In contrast, the non-specific activator, TSA, enhanced both BLVp and CMVp activity.

Conclusion

Based on these data, we conclude the BLV promoter could be very useful for transgene expression in mammalian expression vectors.