AAV with hRPE(1.5) promoter driven TdTomato

This AAV expresses TdTomato driven by a retina hRPE(1.5) promoter.

The RPE65 gene encodes a protein of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) with a key role in the cycling of retinoids. This 1.5Kb promoter gives RPE-specific expression, but the expression level is not as high as that of the shorter, 0.8Kb, promoter. This is probably due to a negative regulatory element(s) present in the 1.5Kb promoter.

dTomato belongs to a family of fluorescent proteins called mFruit. Two dTomato units were joined head-to-tail through a linker, yielding a tandem dimer fluorescent protein, tdTomato. The tdTomato derivative is the brightest fluorescent protein yet reported, featuring an orange-red emission maximum at 581nm and is one of the most photo-stable fluorescent proteins. Other fluorescent proteins with similar emission spectra include DsRed, DsRed2, TurboRFP, TagRFP, and TagRFP-T.