pDRIVE-Desmin

Desmin promoter (Muscle) in pDRIVE expression plasmid

The desmin gene encodes an intermediate filament protein that is present in skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscle cells.

The first 85 nt upstream of the transcription initiation site of the mouse desmin gene which contain an E box (E1), the binding site of myogenic regulators, are sufficient to confer muscle-specific expression.

High levels of desmin expression are achieved by the addition of an enhancer, located between nt -798 and -976, which contains an additional E box (E2) and a muscle-specific enhancer factor-2 (MEF-2) binding site [1].

This muscle-specific promoter has been used in DNA vaccination experiments to induce the production of antibodies against the hepatitis B surface antigen [2] and the HIV-1 Nef protein [3].

References:

1. Li H., Capetanaki Y. 1994. An E box in the desmin promoter cooperates with the E box and MEF-2 sites of a distal enhancer to direct muscle-specific transcription. EMBO J. 13(15):3580-9.
2. Loirat D. et al., 1999. Muscle-specific expression of hepatitis B surface antigen: no effect on DNA-raised immune responses. Virology. 260(1):74-83.
3. Cazeaux N. et al., 2002. Comparative study of immune responses induced after immunization with plasmids encoding the HIV-1 Nef protein under the control of the CMV-IE or the musclespecific desmin promoter. Vaccine. 20(27-28):3322-31.