Abstract

Cells are transfected with exogenous DNA to study the regulation of gene and protein expression.To monitor transfection effi ciency, a reporter gene is often attached to the gene of interest to monitorits insertion into the cell’s genome. Fluorescent proteins like Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) areoften used as such reporters during transfection efficiency experiments. The reporter gene can eitherbe present on the same vector as the gene of interest or can alternatively be located on a separateplasmid. The success of a transfection experiment is defi ned by the ratio of cells expressing theused reporter which “reports” on the insertion of the gene of interest. This ratio is also known astransfection efficiency