Methods and compositions for expressing hairpin-like RNA in prokaryotic cells

摘要

Eukaryotic protein-coding messenger RNAs and non-coding microRNAs are naturally transcribed by type II RNA polymerases (pol-2) but not prokaryotic RNA polymerases. As a result, current eukaryotic RNA and protein production is performed either using eukaryotic pol-2 promoters in hybridomas or mammalian cells or using prokaryotic promoters in bacterial cells. However, because prokaryotic RNA transcription tends to be error-prone, frequent mutation is a big problem. Also, growing hybridomas or mammalian cells is relatively laborious and costly. To overcome these problems, the present invention provides a novel inducible composition and method for producing eukaryotic RNAs and/or their related peptides/proteins directly using eukaryotic pol-2 promoter-driven gene expression in fast growing bacteria, without the need of changing to prokaryotic promoters or growing hybridomas/mammalian cells. The RNAs and peptides/proteins so obtained can be used to develop drugs, cure diseases, treat tumors/cancers, produce pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, enhance wound healing, and make foods.