Tumor redox metabolism correlation with the expression level of red fluorescent protein

The redox metabolism is variable and complicated with the progress of tumor development. Whether the tumor redox state will affect the exogenous gene expression or not, are still not clear now. To investigate the relationship between tumor endogenous redox state and the exogenous gene expression level, a far red fluorescent protein fRFP was used to monitor tumor cells proliferation and as an exogenous protein expression in tumors. NADH (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) and Fp (flavin protein) are two important coenzymes in the mitochondria respiratory chain, which can be as a standard representation for redox metabolism state. Three tumor subcutaneous models (melanoma, human pancreatic carcinoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma) were used to observe their redox state and protein expression by our home-made redox scanner. The results showed that the distribution of fRFP fluorescent protein expression in the inner tumor regions are heterogeneous, and the fluorescent intensity of fRFP and the fluorescent intensity of NADH have high correlation. In addition, we also found the linear coefficient in three tumors are different, the value of coefficient is (R2 = 0.966 and R2 = 0.943) in melanoma, (R2 = 0.701 and R2 = 0.942) in human pancreatic carcinoma, and (R2 = 0.994) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma, respectively. From these results, we consider that the exogenous protein expression of fRFP in tumor had some relationship with the tumor redox state of NADH.