A lentiviral vector bearing a reverse intron demonstrates superior expression of both proteins and microRNAs.

ABSTRACT: While lentiviral expression vectors are widely used in many facets of molecular biology, due to their ability to stably express heterologous genes in both dividing and non-dividing cells, they suffer from the disadvantage that introns inserted into the vector genome are generally rapidly lost by splicing in packaging cell lines. The presence of an intron, if achievable, has the potential to facilitate the expression of transgene cDNAs, as splicing has been extensively shown to facilitate mRNA biogenesis and function. Moreover, if a stable intron could be introduced into a lentiviral vector, this could greatly facilitate the expression of microRNAs (miRNAs), and especially miRNA clusters, as the introduction of pri-miRNA stems into the exonic region of a lentiviral vector can strongly reduc

SUBMITTER: Poling BC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5785219 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature