Co-integration and expression of bacterial and genomic transgenes in the pancreatic and intestinal tissues of transgenic mice

Previous studies in the mammary gland have reported the 'rescue' of poorly expressed cDNA transgenes by their co-integration with a genomic sequence specifically expressed in the mammary tissue. To determine whether a highly expressed genomic sequence co-integrated with a cDNA sequence can rescue expression in other tissues, the expression of a bacterial gene, celE', encoding endoglucanase E' (EGE'), was investigated in the pancreatic and intestinal epithelia of transgenic mice. To rescue pancreatic expression, the human growth hormone genomic sequence was co-integrated with the bacterial gene, whereas to rescue intestinal expression, the genomic sequence encoding the intestinal fatty acid binding protein was used. In both studies the number of transgenics expressing celE' was significantly increased (60%) by the use of a genomic sequence, but only in the intestinal tissues was the level of celE' expression improved. However, this improvement was modest, representing at maximum only a doubling in the levels of ECE'. Thus permissive integration or rescue may be general, but the overall level of rescue is often insubstantial compared to the endogenous expression of the transgene genomic DNA. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.