A potentially immunologically inert derivative of the reverse tetracycline-controlled transactivator

The archetypical system for regulating heterologous gene expression in mammalian cells involves tetracycline-activated transactivators (rtTA). Binding of such transactivators to tet-operator-controlled promoters induces transcription. Immune responses directed against the transactivator proteins may limit the applicability of this system in immune-competent hosts. To circumvent such immune responses the immune evasion mechanism of the Epstein-Barr virus Nuclear-Antigen 1 was exploited. Our data show that fusion of the rtTA with the EBNA-1 derived Gly-Ala repeat yielded an efficient transactivator with no detectable activity in absence of inducer. Antigenic peptides of the fusion protein were not presented in MHC class I.