| abstract |
Disclosed herein are fully impaired consensus Kozak sequences which are most typically used with dominant selectable markers of transcriptional cassettes which are a part of an expression vector. These vectors are most typically utilized in the expression of proteins in mammalian expression systems. As defined, disclosed and claimed herein, a 'fully impaired consensus Kozak' comprises sequence (I), where: 'x' is a nucleotide selected from the group consisting of adenine (A), quanine (G), cytosine (C) or thymine (T)/uracil (U); 'Py' is a pyrimidine nucleotide, ie C or TU; 'ATG' is a codon encoding for the amino acid methionine, the so-called 'start' codon; and -3 and +1 are directional reference points vis-à-vis ATG, ie -3 is meant to indicate three nucleotides upstream of ATG and +1 is meant to indicate one nucleotide downstream of ATG. Dominant selectable markers further comprising artificial intronic insertion regions are further disclosed. |