Boosting protein expression in mammalian cells ?

[David L. Haviland, Ph.D.]

At 15:59 6/29/99 GMT, Nick Theodorakis wrote:
>In article <3778D9F0.8AAF332B at cajal.mbb.ki.se>,
>  svend at cajal.mbb.ki.se wrote:
>> Dear All,
>>
>> Rumours around this lab have it that there is a drug out there, which
>> may enhance the yield of transient heterologue protein expression in
>> mammalian cells, e.g. CHO cells ?
>>
>> Can anyone confirm this and even better, name the compound ?
>
>IIRC, butyrate enhances expression from some promoters (e.g., CMV
>promoter) a few-fold in transfected cells. If nobody else remembers,
>I'll try to come up with a reference for you.

Nick:

It is sodium butyrate.  You have to take butyric acid and titrate in NaOH
to bring the pH to 7.2-7.4.    Gorman, NAR 11:7631 (1983) I think is what
the other fellow is looking for.

However, if memory serves, I thought sodium butaryate only works with SV40
based promoters as described in the paper.  They only used vectors with
SV40 promoters.

I thought TPA (or PMA to some) was better for CMV based promoters,  but I
could be mistaken.

Hope this helps,
David
=============================
 David L. Haviland, Ph.D.
 Asst. Prof. Immunology 
 University of Texas - Houston, H.S.C.
 Institute of Molecular Medicine  
 2121 W. Holcombe Blvd.  
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