Immunohistochemical staining of transgenic beta-galactosidase in burned skin is a better indicator of transfection efficiency than histochemical techniques.

The non-mammalian reporter gene LacZ, encoding the protein beta-galactosidase (beta-Gal), has long been used to test the efficiency of gene transfer into cells in culture or tissues in vivo. Biodistribution and dose-response transfection experiments rely upon a sensitive and specific technique for accurate results. We conducted an experiment to compare two techniques of identifying beta-galactosidase expression.