Construction and functional analysis of a lentiviral expression vector containing a scavenger receptor (SR-PSOX) that binds uniquely phosphatidylserine and oxidized lipoprotein.

The aim of this study is to construct a lentiviral expression vector containing a scavenger receptor (SR-PSOX) that binds with uniquely phosphatidylserine and oxidized lipoprotein with six histidine tags and to investigate the function of SR-PSOX in atherosclerosis. We utilize the ViraPower lentiviral expression system which was efficient to deliver in vitro or in vivo the target gene into dividing and non-dividing mammalian cells using an enhanced biosafety replication-incompetent lentivirus. The blunt-end sequence was amplified using the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and directional TOPO cloning reaction. Through a pair of the cytomegalovirus forward primer and the reverse primer of SR-PSOX, the correct clones were identified by polymerase chain reaction and sequencing. The ViraPower packaging mix and SR-PSOX-pLenti6/V5 TOPO expression plasmid were co-transfected into the 293FT cell line using Lipofectamine 2000. The expression of endogenous and exogenous SR-PSOX as well as tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha protein in various foam cell models at different time points were detected by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, Western blot and indirect immunofluorescence assay. Western blot and immunofluorescence analysis confirmed that the expressions of SR-PSOX and TNF-alpha protein were upregulated in foam cell models. Our data suggested that the overexpression of recombinant human SR-PSOX protein can promote foam cell formation and upregulate the expression of the inflammatory factor TNF-alpha.