• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.743-748
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• 2017

Objective: Based on rapid advancement of genetic modification techniques, genomic editing is expected to become the most efficient tool for improvement of economic traits in livestock as well as poultry. In this study, we examined and verified the nickase of mutated CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) to modulate the specific target gene in chicken DF1 cells. Methods: Chicken myostatin which inhibits muscle cell growth and differentiation during myogenesis was targeted to be deleted and mutated by the Cas9-D10A nickase. After co-transfection of the nickase expression vector with green fluorescent gene (GFP) gene and targeted multiplex guide RNAs (gRNAs), the GFP-positive cells were sorted out by fluorescence-activated cell sorting procedure. Results: Through the genotyping analysis of the knockout cells, the mutant induction efficiency was 100% in the targeted site. Number of the deleted nucleotides ranged from 2 to 39 nucleotide deletion. There was no phenotypic difference between regular cells and knockout cells. However, myostatin protein was not apparently detected in the knockout cells by Western blotting. Additionally, six off-target sites were predicted and analyzed but any non-specific mutation in the off-target sites was not observed. Conclusion: The knockout technical platform with the nickase and multiplex gRNAs can be efficiently and stablely applied to functional genomics study in poultry and finally adapted to generate the knockout poultry for agribio industry.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.1106-1111
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• 2017

Escherichia coli was engineered to sense methanol by employing a chimeric two-component system (TCS) strategy. A chimeric MxaY/EnvZ (MxaYZ) TCS was constructed by fusing the Paracoccus denitrificans MxaY with the E. coli EnvZ. Real-time quantitative PCR analysis and GFP-based fluorescence analysis showed maximum transcription of ompC and the fluorescence at 0.01% of methanol, respectively. These results suggested that E. coli was successfully engineered to sense methanol by the introduction of chimeric MxaYZ. By using this strategy, various chimeric TCS-based bacterial biosensors can be constructed and used for the development of biochemical-producing recombinant microorganisms.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.21 no.6 s.101
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• pp.461-465
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• 2006

We investigated the protein productivity of the promoters for genes showing prolonged induction upon cold shock in Escherichia coli. Six low temperature inducible genes (frdA, glpB, hypB, katG, nupG, ompT) were selected based on the previously reported cDNA microarray based global transcription profiling of Escherichia coli Kl2 in response to cold shock. Their promoter regions were isolated from the genomic DNA of E. coli JM109 and expression levels induced by the promoters were examined by using green fluorescence protein (GFP) as a reporter at $15^{\circ}C$ and $37^{\circ}C$. Among the six promoters, the promoter for nupG showed the highest and prolonged expression at both temperatures and the cold inducibility of nupG promoter was not observed.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.283-292
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• 2009

Objective: Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) can proliferate indefinitely and differentiate into all kinds of cell types in vitro. Therefore, hESCs can be used as a cell source for cell-based therapy. Transduction of foreign genes to hESCs could be useful for tracing differentiation processes of hESCs and elucidation of gene function. Thus, we tried to introduce enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) gene to hESCs, XX and XY cell lines in this study. Methods: Lentivirus containing eGFP was packaged in 293T cells and applied to hESCs to transduce eGFP. Expression of transduced eGFP was evaluated under the fluorescence microscope and eGFP positive population was analyzed by FACS. Expression of undifferentiation state markers such as Oct4, Nanog, SSEA4 and Tra-1-81 was examined by RT-PCR and/or immunofluorescence in eGFP-hESCs after transduction. In addition, the ability of eGFP-hESCs to form embryoid bodies (EBs) was tested. Results: eGFP was successfully transduced to hESCs by lentivirus. eGFP expression was stably maintained up to more than 40 passages. eGFP-hESCs retained expression patterns of undifferentiation state markers after transduction. Interestingly, disappearance of transduced eGFP was notably observed during spontaneous differentiation of eGFP-hESCs. Conclusion: We established eGFP expressing hESC lines using lentivirus and showed the maintenance of undifferentiation characteristics of these eGFP-hESCs. This reporter-containing hESCs could be useful for tracing the processes of differentiation of hESCs and other studies.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.87-92
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• 2006

The possibility of producing transgenic embryos expressing the green fluorescence protein (GFP) gene have been evaluated after transfer of exogenous gene into the porcine zygote cytoplasm using the intracytoplasm sperm injection (ICSI) as gene delivery method. For DNA binding to sperm heads, 0.05% Triton X-100 or Lipofectin was used. After injection of the sperm bound to DNA by means of Lipofectin or Triton X-100 triturate, the blastocyst formation rates on day 6 were not significantly different from that of ICSI only group (18.8, 19.2 and 25.3%). In terms of GFP expression, more embryos were in GFP form in Triton X-100 group than in Lipofectin group (40.6 vs 36.4%), while percentage of non-mosaic embryos expressing the GFP gene in all blastomere was higher (P<0.05) in Lipofectin group than in Triton X-100 group (4.2 vs 0.9%). ICSI embryos derived from sperm treated with Lipofectin/DNA complex was transferred into 3 recipients and were collected by uterine flushing on days 5, 7 and 15 after embryo transfer, and then GFP expression was observed by a fluorescence microscopy. Over 26% of the collected embryos were normally expressed GFP gene. These results suggest that foreign gene transfer method with DNA bound sperm caused minimal damage to structure of oocytes that can result to full development of porcine embryos. This was confirmed in this study when the embryos that were transferred after ISCI of DNA bound sperm had a normal development and gene expression until preimplantation.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.317-322
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• 2002

To improve conventional yeast one-hybrid screening, we have developed an efficient mammalian one-hybrid system that allows rapid isolation of com-plementary DNAs which are able to induce human p14$^{ARF}$. tumor suppressor gene. A 1.5 kb promoter region of p14$^{ARF}$ was fused to EGFP to generate ARF promoter-EGFP reporter vector. This reporter plasmid was stably trans-fected into NIH3T3 cells for generation of reporter cell line. When the reporter cell line was infected with E2F-1 together with excess amounts of empty vector, the cells that received the positive modulator were readily identifiable by green fluorescence using FACS. The GFP-positive cells were cloned directly from the cultured cells and expanded in bulk culture. The genomic DNAs from GFP-positive cells were prepared and the CDNA insert in integrated retroviral genome was recovered by PCR using primers annealing to the retroviral vector sequences flanking the insert-cloning site. This system should be useful for efficient screening of expression CDNA libraries in mammalian cells to identify novel upstream regulators for spe-cific genes by one-hybrid interaction.ion.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.524-529
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• 2017

This study was aimed to produce a transgenic zebrafish expressing the human KCNE1 gene. Initially, the entire CDS of the human KCNE1 gene was amplified from a human genomic DNA sample by polymerase chain reaction using a primer set engineered with restriction enzyme sites (EcoRI, BamHI) at the 5' end of each primer. The resultant 402 bp KCNE1 amplicon flanked by EcoR1 and BamH1 was obtained and subsequently cloned into a plasmid vector pPB-CMVp-EF1-GreenPuro. The integrity of the cloned CDS sequence was confirmed by DNA sequencing analysis. Next, the recombinant vector containing the human KCNE1 (pPB-CMVp-hKCNE1-EF1-GreenPuro) was introduced into fertilized eggs of zebrafish by microinjection. Successful expression of the recombinant vector in the eggs was confirmed by the expression of the fluorescence protein encoded in the vector. Finally, in order to assure that the stable expression of the human KCNE1 gene occurred in the transgenic animal, RNAs were extracted from the animal and the presence of KCNE1 transcripts was confirmed by RT-PCT as well as DNA sequencing analysis. The study provides a methodology to construct a useful transgenic animal model applicable to the development of diagnostic technologies for gene therapy of LQTS (Long QT Syndrome) as well as tools for cloning of useful genes in fish.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.4263-4266
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• 2012

Colorectal cancer has become a major disease threatening human health. To establish animal models that exhibit the characteristics of human colorectal cancer will not only help to study the mechanisms underlying the genesis and development effectively, but also provide ideal carriers for the screening of medicines and examining their therapeutic effects. In this study, we established a stable, colon cancer nude mouse model highly expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) for spontaneous metastasis after surgical orthotopic implantation (SOI). GFP-labeled colon cancer models for metastasis after SOI were successfully established in all of 15 nude mice and there were no surgery-related complications or deaths. In week 3, primary tumors expressing GFP were observed in all model animals under fluoroscopy and two metastatic tumors were monitored by fluorescent imaging at the same time. The tumor volumes progressively increased with time. Seven out of 15 tumor transplanted mice died and the major causes of death were intestinal obstruction and cachexia resulting from malignant tumor growth. Eight model animals survived at the end of the experiment, 6 of which had metastases (6 cases to mesenteric lymph nodes, 4 hepatic, 2 pancreatic and 1 mediastinal lymph node). Our results indicate that our GFP-labeled colon cancer orthotopic transplantation model is useful with a high success rate; the transplanted tumors exhibit similar biological properties to human colorectal cancer, and can be used for real-time, in vivo, non-invasive and dynamic observation and analysis of the growth and metastasis of tumor cells.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.249-253
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• 2016

The inky cap, Coprinellus congregatus, produces several laccase isozymes during its life cycle: both hyphal tip laccase and sclerotial laccase are involved in the fungal development. When this fungus was transferred to an acid liquid medium (pH 4.0-4.5), a new laccase was synthesized and secreted into the culture supernatant. In order to examine its regulation by external pH, green fluorescent protein gene was ligated at the downstream of the promoters having different lengths. These expression vectors having different promoter lengths were inserted into the fungal transformation vector, pBARGEM7-1. These expression vectors were introduced to the mating type a1 and a2 monokaryons, and the transformants were selected by the phosphinothricin resistance. Transformant a1 (a1TF) and transformant a2 (a2TF) were mated with each other to generate homozygotic dikaryon transformants. All these transformants were grown in neutral liquid medium for 5 days, and then the whole cell homogenates were transferred to the acidic liquid medium (pH 4.1). After 36 h incubation at $25^{\circ}C$, cells were harvested for the analysis of GFP expression. GFP expression was detected in the transformant having full-length promoter (2.0 kb), but other transformants having shorter length promoter (shorter than 1.29 kb) failed to show the fluorescence. Therefore, the acid-responsive element in the laccase promoter should be localized between -2.0 kb ~ -1.29 kb region.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.144-151
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• 2014

Increasing the gene copy number has been commonly used to enhance the protein expression level in the yeast Pichia pastoris. However, this method has been shown to be effective up to a certain gene copy number, and a further increase of gene dosage can result in a decrease of expression level. Evidences indicate the gene dosage effect is product-dependent, which needs to be determined when expressing a new protein. Here, we describe a direct detection of the gene dosage effect on protein secretion through expressing the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) gene under the direction of the ${\alpha}$-factor preprosequence in a panel of yeast clones carrying increasing copies of the EGFP gene (from one to six copies). Directly examined under fluorescence microscopy, we found relatively lower levels of EGFP were secreted into the culture medium at one copy and two copies, substantial improvement of secretion appeared at three copies, plateau happened at four and five copies, and an apparent decrease of secretion happened at six copies. The secretion of EGFP being limiting at four and five copies was due to abundant intracellular accumulation of proteins, observed from the fluorescence image of yeast and confirmed by western blotting, which significantly activated the unfolded protein response indicated by the up-regulation of the BiP (the KAR2 gene product) and the protein disulfide isomerase. This study implies that tagging a reporter like GFP to a specific protein would facilitate a direct and rapid determination of the optimal gene copy number for high-yield expression.