Identification of an intestine-specific promoter and inducible expression of bacterial α-galactosidase in mammalian cells by a lac operon system

Abstract Background α-galactosidase has been widely used in animal husbandry to reduce anti-nutritional factors (such as α-galactoside) in feed. Intestine-specific and substrate inducible expression of α-galactosidase would be highly beneficial for transgenic animal production. Methods To achieve the intestine-specific and substrate inducible expression of α-galactosidase, we first identified intestine-specific promoters by comparing the transcriptional activity and tissue specificity of four intestine-specific promoters from human intestinal fatty acid binding protein, rat intestinal fatty acid binding protein, human mucin-2 and human lysozyme. We made two chimeric constructs combining the promoter and enhancer of human mucin-2, rat intestinal trefoil factor and human sucrase-isomaltase. Then a modified lac operon system was constructed to investigate the induction of α-galactosidase expression and enzyme activity by isopropyl β-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG) and an α-galactosidase substrate, α-lactose. We declared that the research carried out on human (Zhai Yafeng) was in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration, and experimental research on animals also followed internationally recognized guidelines. Results The activity of the human mucin-2 promoter was about 2 to 3 times higher than that of other intestine-specific promoters. In the lac operon system, the repressor significantly decreased (P P Conclusions We have successfully constructed a high specificity inducible lac operon system in an intestine-derived cell line, which could be of great value for gene therapy applications and transgenic animal production.