title: Enhanced green fluorescent protein transgenic expression in vivo is not biologically inert.
abstract: Enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) is a widely used biological reporter. However, the effects of EGFP expression in vivo are still unclear. To investigate the effects of EGFP transgenic expression in vivo, we employed an NMR-based metabonomics method to analyze the metabonome of EGFP transgenic mice. The results show that the metabonomes of urine, liver, and kidney of the EGFP transgenic mice are different from their wild-type counterparts. The EGFP mice expressed high levels of urinary 3-ureidopropionate, which is due to the down-regulated transcriptional level of β-ureidopropionase. The expression of EGFP in vivo also affects other metabolic pathways, including nucleic acid metabolism, energy utilization, and amino acids catabolism. These findings indicate that EGFP transgenic expression is not as inert as has been considered. Our investigation provides a holistic view on the effect of EGFP expression in vivo, which is useful when EGFP is employed as a functional biological indicator. Our work also highlights the potential of a metabonomics strategy in studying the association between molecular phenotypes and gene function.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Hongde
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Huiru
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Yulan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000581:Amidohydrolases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D000596:Amino Acids / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D002952:Citric Acid Cycle / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D017930:Genes, Reporter; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study; D050261:Glycogenolysis / Q000235:genetics; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D007668:Kidney / Q000378:metabolism*; D008099:Liver / Q000378:metabolism*; D051379:Mice; D008822:Mice, Transgenic / Q000235:genetics / Q000652:urine*; D009696:Nucleic Acids / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D015091:beta-Alanine / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000652:urine
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D009696:Nucleic Acids; C485184:enhanced green fluorescent protein; D015091:beta-Alanine; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; C035122:N-carbamoyl-beta-alanine; D000581:Amidohydrolases; C021590:beta-ureidopropionase