Question

Which of the following is a difference between the use of a reporter gene to study gene regulation (ex. promoter deletion mapping with a reporter protein) and using a reporter gene to study protein localization? Select all that apply? o When studying protein localization, a fusion protein is created which consists of both the protein of interest and the reporter protein. D Unlike protein localization studies, when studying gene expression, only the reporter gene is expressed and not the actual gene of interest. The reporter gene used in these two techniques is different, luciferase is only used to study gene expression, while GFP is only used to study protein localization.

Answer 1

to check the gene expression the promoter of the gene of interest is fused with the reporter gene, then the reporter gene will be expressed in all those cells which express the gene of interest, so the constructs for the protein expression will have promoter of gene of the interest-reporter gene.

In the protein localization studies, we have to fuse the protein of interest with the reporter gene because the reporter gene itself does not have the localization signal sequences, so the constructs for the protein localization studies will have promoter of the gene of interest-gene of the interest-reporter gene.

so the answers are a) when studying protein localization a fusion protein is created which consists of both protein of interest and the reporter gene.

b) Unlike protein localization studies, when studying gene expression, only the reporter gene is expressed and not the actual gene of interest.

( any reporter gene can be used in both localization and expression constructs)