Background: Endoplasmic reticulum maintains protein homeostasis by protein synthesis and degradation. Three signal paths regulates the process by ”unfolded protein response” in different ways. Inositol-requiring enzyme 1 alpha is one path activated by a disturbed protein homeostasis. Stress starts if the cell is exposed to chemical substances as in connection with scientific animal experiments when pharmaceuticals are developed. The response of the activated signal path leads e.g. to splicing of X-box-binding protein 1 mRNA.
Object: The object of the project is to reduce the need of scientific animal experiments by enabling increased implementation of the 3R principle. The question is if the fluorescent plasmid pEGFP-XBP1∆dDBD-STOP-tagRFPt binding to X-box binding protein 1 mRNA can be used for detection of cells whose endoplasmatic reticulum is stressed.
Method: Plasmid pEGFP-XBP1 ∆ dDBD-STOP-tagRFPt was purified from DH5-Alpha Escherichia coli with JETstar 2.0 Plasmid Purification Midiprep Kit. Human epithelial kidney cells 293 were transfected with the plasmid whereupon they were dosed with tunicamycin. The control was made off dimethylsulfoxide. Microscopy was done in the fluorescence microscope Zeiss Axiovert 200. The software AxioVision Ver. 4.8.1.0. Carl Zeiss Imaging Solutions imaged cells on the computer screen.
Result: The significans of the hypothesis test was set to p < 0,05. The result suggests that the number of ER-stressed cells increase with increasing incubation time (p = 0,001 – 0,966). A smaller hint is also pointing toward increasing concentrations of tunicamycin (p = 0,096 – 0,690).
Conclusion: A reasonable conclusion cannot be made because of too few tests.