AAV with CAG promoter driven EBFP2

This AAV expresses EBFP2 driven by an ubiquitous CAG promoter.

The roughly 1.8Kb CAG promoter (also known as CBA promoter or CAGGS promoter) is a strong synthetic promoter frequently used to drive high levels of gene expression in mammalian cells. The CAG promoter is composed of the following regulatory elements: (C) cytomegalovirus (CMV) early enhancer element; (A) the promoter region, the first exon, and the first intron of chicken beta-Actin gene, and (G) the splice acceptor of the rabbit beta-Globin gene. Like the EF1a promoter, the CAG promoter is commonly used as an alternative for the CMV promoter, from which the expression is decreased due to methylation/silencing. In many cell types tested, the CAG and EF1a promoters give much higher levels of expression than other commonly used cellular promoters such as the UBC and PGK promoters.

EBFP2 is new version of blue fluorescent protein (BFP), with an Excitation/Emission spectrum of 380nm/448nm. EBFP2 is the brightest and most photo-stable of the BFPs; it is useful for situations in which a blue probe is required, especially when two-photon excitation is used.