UNIQUE REPORTER PROTEINS MANUFACTURED AND SUPPLIED BY PhaRNA, LLC

Reporter proteins are detectable and measurable indicators of gene expression or cellular activity that allows investigators to monitor and analyze different biological processes. A marker gene or reporter gene is a gene that is introduced into cells in vitro or in vivo to identify and select those that have successfully acquired the genetic material (pDNA or mRNA) encoding that gene and translate it into the corresponding reporter protein.

To optimize procedures for modifying a cell outside and inside of organism with a gene of interest, a gene encoding one of the reporter proteins is often used in preliminary experiments. In other settings to introduce a reporter gene into an organism, scientists place the reporter gene and the gene of interest in the same mRNA bicistronic construct to be inserted into the cell or organism. It is important to use a reporter gene that is not natively expressed in the cell or organism under study, since the expression of the reporter is being used as a marker for successful uptake of the gene of interest.

Commonly used reporter genes that induce visually identifiable characteristics usually involve Fluorescent and Luminescent proteins. For example, mRNA encoding Jellyfish GFP (green fluorescent protein) and Discosoma mCherry (red fluorescent protein) proteins causes cells that express it to glow accordingly green and red under ultraviolet light, while the mRNA encoding the enzyme Luciferase induces catalyzes a reaction with substrate luciferin to produce light.  A common reporter in bacteria is the lacZ gene of E. coli, which encodes the enzyme beta-galactosidase, causing cells expressing this gene to appear blue when grown in media containing an analogue of the substrate X-gal.

PhaRNA, LLC offer several premade synthetic mRNAs encoding for some of the most common reporter proteins (https://www.pharna.com/reporter-proteins/) including mRNA of the Jellyfish GFP (green fluorescent protein), Discosoma mCherry (red fluorescent protein), firefly Luciferase (fLuc), renilla Luciferase (rLuc), gaussia Luciferase (gLuc) and beta-galactosidase (beta-Gal). In addition to these synthetic mRNAs encoding reporter proteins localized in the cellular cytosol, PhaRNA offers unique mRNAs encoding GFP-NLS (https://www.pharna.com/product/1500201/) and mCherry-NLS (https://www.pharna.com/product/1500801/) localized after translation in the nucleus. Such reporter proteins, which, after translation of the synthetic mRNA encoding them, are transferred into the nucleus, serve as the best control for those researchers who study structural, enzymatic and regulatory proteins functioning in the cell nucleus.       

Each synthetic mRNA encoding for reporter proteins localized in cellular cytosol or in nucleus can be readily assayed after translation and therefore used as control markers for mRNA packaging and delivery optimization in vitro and in vivo. These mRNAs are synthesized on error free sequence verified plasmid DNA based (non-PCR product) template with built-in constant poly-157A tail and enzymatically Cap1 caped, providing close to 100% capping efficiency and therefore superior mRNA stability and translatability.