Quantitative comparison of gene co-expression in a bicistronic vector harboring IRES or coding sequence of porcine teschovirus 2A peptide

Abstract

Simultaneous expression of multiple target genes is often required in biotechnology. Multicistronic vectors coding for several proteins are being actively developed for this purpose. In commercially available vectors different variants ofencephalomyocarditis virus internal ribosome entry site (IRES EMCV) are used most often. However, many researchers consider that utilization ofself-cleaving 2A peptides sequences within multi- and bicistronic vectors is more promising. In this work, we compared the efficiency of gene expression in cells transfected with bicistronic vectors based on IRES EMCV and 2A peptide sequence derived form porcine teschovirus-1 (P2A). Efficiency ofgene expression was determined in three mammalian cell lines by measurement of co-expression levels of genes coding for RFP and EGFP proteins linked by IRES or P2A sequence. Higher level oftransgene expression was exhibited by cells transfected with the vector containing the 2A peptide sequence.