pRIBOTEX expression vector: a pTEX derivative for a rapid selection of Trypanosoma cruzi transfectants

To improve the selection phenotype of the expression plasmid pTEX, a Trypanosoma cruzi rDNA (DNA coding for rRNA) gene spacer fragment (806 bp) containing a mapped transcription start point (tsp) was cloned in the vectors pTEX and pTEX-cat, generating the plasmids pRIBOTEX and pRIBOTEX-cat. T. cruzi cultures transiently transfected with pRIBOTEX-cat expressed a chloramphenicol (Cm) acetyltransferase (CAT) activity 16,000-fold greater than the activity observed with the parental vector pTEX-cat. Moreover, T. cruzi cells transformed with pRIBOTEX and pRIBOTEX-cat exhibited logarithmic growth in the presence of Geneticin (G418) 2 weeks earlier than that observed with controls transformed with pTEX. The plasmid copy number in stably transformed trypanosomes was about 50-times higher in cultures transformed with pTEX-cat than in cells transformed with pRIBOTEX or pRIBOTEX-cat. However, the neo RNA steady-state level and the CAT activity observed among the stably transfected cultures showed only modest differences. Finally, it was found that the pRIBOTEX vector was not episomally maintained as pTEX, but integrated into a chromosome indistinguishable from the one encoding rRNA. These features make pRIBOTEX a useful tool for transfection and rapid expression of genes in T. cruzi.