Enhancing of GM3 synthase expression during differentiation of human blood monocytes into macrophages as in vitro model of GM3 accumulation in atherosclerotic lesion.

In previous studies, we showed that ganglioside levels (GM3 being the main ganglioside) in human aortic intima isolated from atherosclerotic lesions were 5 times greater compared to intima from non-diseased vascular areas. Recently, we found that GM3 and GM3 synthase levels in differentiated in vitro macrophages were five and ten times higher, respectively, compared to freshly isolated human monocytes. In this article, we report that GM3 synthase mRNA levels were significantly higher in differentiated human monocyte-derived macrophages compared to monocytes and in atherosclerotic aorta compared to normal aorta.

Lentivirus transduction of bone marrow hemopoietic precursor cells with Lin-c-kit+ phenotype ex vivo using a genetic construct containing green fluorescent protein gene.

We developed a technology of labeling bone marrow precursor cells with the Lin-c-kit+ phenotype in culture by green fluorescent protein gene using a lentivirus vector. The proposed system provides effective transduction of bone marrow precursor cells and high transgene expression level in vitro (27%). The integration of the transgene into the transduced cell genome in vivo was verified by the method of splenic colonies.