Novel expression cassettes for increasing apolipoprotein AI transgene expression in vascular endothelial cells

Transduction of endothelial cells (EC) with a vector that expresses apolipoprotein A-I (APOAI) reduces atherosclerosis in arteries of fat-fed rabbits. However, the effects on atherosclerosis are partial and might be enhanced if APOAI expression could be increased. With a goal of developing an expression cassette that generates higher levels of APOAI mRNA in EC, we tested 4 strategies, largely in vitro: addition of 2 types of enhancers, addition of computationally identified EC-specific cis-regulatory modules (CRM), and insertion of the rabbit APOAI gene at the transcription start site (TSS) of sequences cloned from genes that are highly expressed in cultured EC. Addition of a shear stress-responsive enhancer did not increase APOAI expression. Addition of 2 copies of a Mef2c enhancer increased APOAI expression from a moderately active promoter/enhancer but decreased APOAI expression from a highly active promoter/enhancer. Of the 11 CRMs, 3 increased APOAI expression from a moderately active promoter (2–7-fold; P < 0.05); none increased expression from a highly active promoter/enhancer. Insertion of the APOAI gene into the TSS of highly expressed EC genes did not increase expression above levels obtained with a moderately active promoter/enhancer. New strategies are needed to further increase APOAI transgene expression in EC.