RAR Pathway

The Retinoic Acid Receptor (RAR) pathway is a crucial signaling pathway that regulates gene expression by mediating the effects of retinoic acid (RA), a metabolite of vitamin A. This pathway plays a vital role in embryonic development, cell differentiation, proliferation, apoptosis, and understanding developmental defects related to vitamin A imbalance. [Ref1].

2. Lentivirus Detects RAR Pathway:

GenTarget developed a set of reporting lentivirus to monitor RAR signaling pathway activity. Those reporting lentivirus has a luminescent report (Luciferase) or a fluorescent report (GFP), under a minimal CMV promoter (mCMV) that embedded with optimized tandem repeats of pathway specific retinoic acid response elements (RAREs) as the transcriptional response element (TRE ), sequence motif (5′- AGGTCACCAGGAGGTCAtcAGGTCA  3′) [Ref 2].

The RAR signaling pathway can be activated natural ligands, such as All-Trans-Retinoic Acid (ATRA), 9-Cis-Retinoic Acid, or the Synthetic Agonists, such as TTNPB (AGN 190205), AM580, BMS753, CD437. Those ligands binds to RAR, forming RAR/RXR heterodimers. The heterodimers bind to retinoic acid response elements (RAREs) in this report’s promoter region of this lentivirus, leading to increased expression of the reporter protein (luciferase or GFP).

3. Structure of the Reporting Lentivirus:

The pathway specific reporting Lentivirus use either firefly-luciferase or GFP signal changes to detect the pathway’s activity.   Those reporting lentivirus also contains a constitutively expressed Puromycin antibiotic selection marker, or a GFP fluorescent selection marker, which makes it easier to select the stably transduced signal reporting cells, via Puromycin killing or GFP sorting respectively. See lentivector core scheme below.

The premade, ready-to-use reporter lentivirus provides a much easier tool to monitor the activity of the signaling pathways in virtually any mammalian cell type. It also allows to generate your own reporting cell line in your desired cell type for study or screening of pathway specific gene-knockdown, over-expression, or chemical / drug/protein treatment in the cell based assay.

Click the Product Manual (pdf) for all available products for this pathway reporter.