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In vitro and in vivo comparison of viral and cellular internal ribosome entry sites for bicistronic vector expression

Gene Therapy volume 18, pages 631–636 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Bicistronic vectors are essential to achieve efficient expression of multiple genes in gene therapy protocols and biomedical applications. Internal ribosome entry site (IRES) elements have been utilized to initiate expression of an additional protein from a bicistronic vector. The IRES element commonly used in current bicistronic vectors originates from the encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV). As IRES-mediated translation is dependent on availability of IRES trans-acting factors, which vary between cell types and species, adequate gene expression from the EMCV IRES element is not always achieved. To identify a novel IRES element that mediates gene expression consistently with a higher efficiency than the EMCV IRES, we tested 13 bicistronic reporter constructs containing different viral and cellular IRES elements. The in vitro screening in human and mouse fibroblast and hepatocarcinoma cells revealed that the vascular endothelial growth factor and type 1 collagen-inducible protein (VCIP) IRES was the only IRES element that directed translation more efficiently than the EMCV IRES in all cell lines. Furthermore, the VCIP IRES initiated greater reporter expression levels than the EMCV IRES in transfected mouse livers. These results suggest that VCIP-IRES containing vectors improve gene expression compared with those harboring an EMCV-IRES. This could increase the potential benefits of bicistronic vectors for experimental and therapeutic purposes.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by an NSERC Discovery Grant to KH and a post-doctoral fellowship award to SLC from the Cancer Research Training Program with support from the Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute and the Terry Fox Foundation. We thank Paul Crocker for technical assistance.

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  1. S L Christian

    Present address: Current address: Department of Biochemistry, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, NL, Canada.,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of BioMedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, Newfoundland, Canada

    M Licursi, S L Christian, T Pongnopparat & K Hirasawa

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Licursi, M., Christian, S., Pongnopparat, T. et al. In vitro and in vivo comparison of viral and cellular internal ribosome entry sites for bicistronic vector expression. Gene Ther 18, 631–636 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/gt.2011.11

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