Increasing serum levels of biliverdin and bilirubin was shown to be beneficial in settings of inflammation. Bilirubin was shown to be protective in LPS-induced lung injury in rats; however, the exact mechanism remains elusive. Here, we investigated whether a single bolus injection of bilirubin would exert anti-inflammatory effects in a mouse model of endotoxemia. Mice were challenged with sublethal doses (2 mg/kg body weight) of LPS, and the effects of intravenously administered bilirubin (40 mg/kg body weight) were assessed. In contrast to control animals, bilirubin-treated animals fully recovered from endotoxin shock within 24 h. Bilirubin treatment improved the clinical score significantly at all time points assessed, attenuated weight loss, and improved LPS-induced anorexia. Furthermore, bilirubin treatment inhibited LPS-induced leukocyte-endothelial interactions and leukocyte accumulation in various tissues. Expression of inflammatory genes, including endothelial adhesion molecules, but also IL-1beta and TNF-alpha, was significantly reduced in bilirubin-treated animals. Moreover, bilirubin inhibited LPS-induced expression of inflammatory genes in isolated cultured aortic endothelial cells and in bone marrow-derived macrophages. These data show that single-dose administration of bilirubin attenuates tissue injury induced by endotoxin, and that bilirubin, in addition to its antioxidant effects, also exerts potent anti-inflammatory activity.
The mammalian core promoter is a sophisticated and crucial component for the regulation of transcription mediated by the RNA polymerase II. It is generally defined as the minimal region of contiguous DNA sequence that is sufficient to accurately initiate a basal level of gene expression. The core promoter represents the ultimate target for nucleation of a functional pre-initiation complex composed of the RNA polymerase II and associated general transcription factors. Among the more than 40 distinct proteins assembling the basal transcription complex, TFIID plays a central role in recognizing and binding specific core promoter elements to support creating an environment that facilitates transcription initiation. Several common DNA motifs, like the TATA box, initiator region, or the downstream promoter element, are found in a subset of core promoters present in various combinations. Another class of promoters that is usually absent of a TATA box is constituted by the so-called CpG islands, which are associated with the majority of protein-coding genes within the mammalian genome.
BackgroundThe Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) expression system is the leading production platform for manufacturing biopharmaceuticals for the treatment of numerous human diseases. Efforts to optimize the production process also include the genetic construct encoding the therapeutic gene. Here we report about the successful identification of an endogenous highly active gene promoter obtained from CHO cells which shows conditionally inducible gene expression at reduced temperature.ResultsBased on CHO microarray expression data abundantly transcribed genes were selected as potential promoter candidates. The S100a6 (calcyclin) and its flanking regions were identified from a genomic CHO-K1 lambda-phage library. Computational analyses showed a predicted TSS, a TATA-box and several TFBSs within the 1.5 kb region upstream the ATG start signal. Various constructs were investigated for promoter activity at 37°C and 33°C in transient luciferase reporter gene assays. Most constructs showed expression levels even higher than the SV40 control and on average a more than two-fold increase at lower temperature. We identified the core promoter sequence (222 bp) comprising two SP1 sites and could show a further increase in activity by duplication of this minimal sequence.ConclusionsThis novel CHO promoter permits conditionally high-level gene expression. Upon a shift to 33°C, a two to three-fold increase of basal productivity (already higher than SV40 promoter) is achieved. This property is of particular advantage for a process with reduced expression during initial cell growth followed by the production phase at low temperature with a boost in expression. Additionally, production of toxic proteins becomes feasible, since cell metabolism and gene expression do not directly interfere. The CHO S100a6 promoter can be characterized as cold-shock responsive with the potential for improving process performance of mammalian expression systems.
The objective of this approach was to identify new CHO endogenous gene regulatory elements that are capable of regulating foreign gene expression in recombinant CHO host cells. The standard technology for the production of many biopharmaceutical products is frequently based on expression vectors that utilize strong mammalian viral promoters like SV40 or CMV which allow for very high expression rates but this may lead to constitutive over-expression resulting in a permanent stress for the cell. In addition, some heterologous promoters are cell-cycle dependent and can be subject to gene silencing generating heterogeneity within the cell population. Here, we describe the construction of a genomic CHO library and the subsequent identification and isolation of selected target sequences that are believed to be responsible for high level expression of the associated genes. The method that was used to isolate these regions of interest relies on gene specific amplification with primer pairs binding on different genes and the vector sequence. Flanking regions of these fragments were identified through Inverse PCR from fragmented and self-ligated genomic DNA. Expression levels of both the initially derived and the mapped fragments were determined through a luciferase reporter assay.
The choice of promoter is a critical step in optimizing the efficiency and stability of recombinant protein production in mammalian cell lines. Artificial promoters that provide stable expression across cell lines and can be designed to the desired strength constitute an alternative to the use of viral promoters. Here, we show how the nucleotide characteristics of highly active human promoters can be modelled via the genome-wide frequency distribution of short motifs: by overlapping motifs that occur infrequently in the genome, we constructed contiguous sequence that is rich in GC and CpGs, both features of known promoters, but lacking homology to real promoters. We show that snippets from this sequence, at 100 base pairs or longer, drive gene expression in vitro in a number of mammalian cells, and are thus candidates for use in protein production. We further show that expression is driven by the general transcription factors TFIIB and TFIID, both being ubiquitously present across cell types, which results in less tissue- and species-specific regulation compared to the viral promoter SV40. We lastly found that the strength of a promoter can be tuned up and down by modulating the counts of GC and CpGs in localized regions. These results constitute a “proof-of-concept” for custom-designing promoters that are suitable for biotechnological and medical applications.
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