AAV with eSYN promoter driven SEAP

This AAV expresses SEAP driven by a neuron eSYN promoter.

The eSYN is a hybrid promoter consisting of a 0.4Kb CMV enhancer (E) and the 0.45Kb human Synapsin I promoter fragment (hSYN1). eSYN hybrid promoter gives about 2-4 fold higher expression than that of the parental hSYN1 promoter. However, the neuronal specificity of eSYN is slightly decreased, compared to that of the parental hSYN1 promoter.

The SEAP reporter gene encodes a truncated form of the human placental alkaline phosphatase that lacks the membrane anchoring domain. Therefore, the protein can be efficiently secreted from transfected cells allowing for detection of reporter gene activity without cell lysis. Using a secreted reporter protein has several advantages over traditional reporter assays: 1) Cell lysis is not required for analysis so a single set of cells can be used for both the SEAP assay and another purpose; 2) Gene expression kinetics can be studied by the repeated collection of the culture medium from the same cultures; and 3) By changing the culture medium prior to an experiment, the assay background is reduced to an extremely low level.