The transfection of plasmids into mammalian cells directly incorporates genetic material into the genome to form a stable transfection. Stable transfection is used to create cell populations that will continue to express the genetic characteristics of the foreign material and then pass it on to the offspring. In order to achieve stable transfection, there should be selective pressure to force cells to integrate plasmid DNA into the genome.
Reporter genes are usually used to easily monitor the transfection efficiency and expression levels in cells. Synbio Technologies provides a variety of reporter gene expression vectors to meet the screening needs of different cell lines and efficiently screen expression according to cell-specific screening conditions.

Fluorescent Proteins, Promoters, and Selectable Markers Selection

Different promoters have different activation activities in different cells. For example, in hematopoietic stem cells, SFFV has much better activation activity than CMV. There are also differences in tissue-specific expression. AAT is highly expressed in liver tissues and weakly expressed in other tissues. hSyn is highly expressed in nerve cells and weakly expressed in other tissues. Synbio Technologies provide a variety of fluorescent proteins, promoters, and mammalian expression vectors with selectable markers to meet the needs of cell-specific screening.

Schematic diagram of mammalian cell expression vector

Selectable markers in mammalian cells work similarly to that in bacteria.
A table of the most commonly used selectable markers are listed below:

Name Gene Conferring Resistance Cell Types Mode of Action
Blasticidin bsd HEK293, CHO, HeLa, COS-1NIH3T3 Inhibits termination step of translation
G418/Geneticin neo HEK293, CHO,HeLa, NIH3T3, Jurkat T cells Blocks polypeptide synthesis at 80S; inhibits chain elongation
Hygromycin B hygB CHO, HeLa, NIH3T3, Jurkat T cells Blocks polypeptide synthesis at 80S; inhibits chain elongation
Puromycin pac HEK293, HeLa, Jurkat T cells Inhibits protein synthesis; premature chain termination
Zeocin Shbla HEK293, CHO, HeLa, NIH3T3, COS-1, Jurkat T cells Complexes with DNA; causes strand scissions

The promoters of mammalian expression vectors also have different applicable objects.
The most commonly used promoters are listed below:

Promoter Primarily used for RNA Transcript Description
CMV General expression mRNA Strong mammalian expression promoter from the human cytomegalovirus
EF1a General expression mRNA Strong mammalian expression from human elongation factor 1 alpha
SV40 General expression mRNA Mammalian expression promoter from the simian vacuolating virus 40
PGK1 (human or mouse) General expression mRNA Mammalian promoter from the phosphoglycerate kinase gene
Ubc General expression mRNA Mammalian promoter from the human ubiquitin C gene
Human beta actin General expression mRNA Mammalian promoter from the beta actin gene
CAG General expression mRNA Strong hybrid mammalian promoter
TRE General expression mRNA Tetracycline response element promoter
UAS General expression mRNA Drosophila promoter containing Gal4 binding sites
CaMKIIa Gene expression for optogenetics mRNA Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II promoter
H1 small RNA expression shRNA From the human polymerase III RNA promoter
U6 small RNA expression shRNA From the human U6 small nuclear promoter

* For more information please contact us at quote@synbio-tech.com.

Vector Types

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