SITE-SPECIFIC INTEGRATION IN CELLS OF THE MESENCHYMAL LINEAGE

摘要

The present invention relates to methods for gene expression or RNA interference-mediated gene knock down in mesenchymal cells. The cells of the mesenchymal lineage comprise in their genome a recognition sequence for a sequence-specific recombinase that allows stable and reproducible single copy integration of DNA constructs for expression of nucleic acids in the mesenchymal cells. The invention further relates to DNA constructs with improved RNA polymerase III promoters for the expression of small interfering RNA molecules for gene knock down purposes. Preferably the promoter is a type 3 RNA polymerase III promoter that comprises more than one distal sequence element of a type 3 RNA polymerase III promoter.