In vivo measurements reveal a single 5'-intron is sufficient to increase protein expression level in Caenorhabditis elegans.

ABSTRACT: Introns can increase gene expression levels using a variety of mechanisms collectively referred to as Intron Mediated Enhancement (IME). IME has been measured in cell culture and plant models by quantifying expression of intronless and intron-bearing reporter genes in vitro. We developed hardware and software to implement microfluidic chip-based gene expression quantification in vivo. We altered position, number and sequence of introns in reporter genes controlled by the hsp-90 promoter. Consistent with plant and mammalian studies, we determined a single, natural or synthetic, 5'-intron is sufficient for the full IME effect conferred by three synthetic introns, while a 3'-intron is not. We found coding sequence can affect IME; the same three synthetic introns that increase mcherry protein

SUBMITTER: Crane MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6591249 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature