Enhancement of Exogenous Gene Expression by the Artificial Transcription Factor in Chinese Hamster Ovary Cells

Using the amino acids 1-147 of the yeast transcriptional activator GAL4 as the DNA-binding domain and four tandem repeats of the 12-aa peptide (DALDDFDLDMLG) of the herpesvirus VP16 as the activation domain, an artificial transcription factor, GVP4 was constructed via the linkage of the nuclear localization signal sequence of SV40. And then, GVP4 was cloned into expression vector pcDNA3.1/Hygro(+). Various amounts of targeting sites of artificial transcription factor were linked to the upstream of promoter CMV in exogenous gene expression vector pcDNA3.1(+) that separately harbored EGFP cDNA and t-PA cDNA. The CHO cells were co-transfected with GVP4 expression vector and EGFP or t-PA expression vector. The effect of GVP4 on exogenous gene expression was evaluated by measuring the fluorescence intensity of EGFP in CHO cells and the concentration of t-PA in the supernatant. GVP4 showed positive effect on enhancement of exogenous gene expression in CHO cells integrated with targeting sites of artificial transcription factor. And, CHO cells integrated with 10 targeting sites of GVP4 was more favorable to foreign gene expression, which resulted in 2-3-fold increase in both EGFP and t-PA expressions. These results indicated that artificial transcription factor is potent in the enhancement of exogenous gene expression in mammalian cells.