Part:BBa_K5441005

PSMA_Promoter

The PSMA promoter is derived from the Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) gene, which is primarily expressed in prostate tissues. PSMA is a protein that is highly expressed in prostate cancer cells, rendering it a valuable biomarker to be used in therapeutic strategies. In healthy tissues, it has low levels of expression, but in prostate tumours, it becomes overexpressed. This characteristic allows researchers to use the PSMA promoter to drive the expression of therapeutic genes specifically in cancer cells, potentially enhancing treatment efficacy while minimising effects on normal tissues.

PSA is another protein secreted by prostate cancer cells and is commonly used as a marker for prostate cancer diagnosis and monitoring. While PSA levels can indicate the presence of prostate cancer, PSMA is more specific to cancerous cells and is often associated with more advanced disease. PSMA is expressed in over 80% of men with prostate cancer, and shows a higher correlation with prostate cancer than the common biomarker PSA. This makes the PSMA promoter a better choice for projects to develop targeted therapies or diagnostic tools for prostate cancer.

In your project, the PSMA promoter can be used to drive the expression of a fluorescent protein, a therapeutic protein, or any gene of interest in specific cell types. This specificity is crucial for applications like cancer detection and targeted therapies.

To use the PSMA promoter, you will need to clone it into your plasmid alongside your gene of interest. After transforming the plasmid into your target cells, you can induce expression under conditions that activate the promoter. It’s important to carefully design your experiments to confirm that the promoter is functioning as expected, which can be done by transfecting a plasmid, with the PSMA promoter and a common reporter gene (GFP), into cancerous and normal cells.

Sequence and Features

Assembly Compatibility:

• 10
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[10]
• 12
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[12]
• 21
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[21]
• 23
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[23]
• 25
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[25]
• 1000
  INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[1000]

  Illegal BsaI site found at 630