Figure 1 Transactivation of CART determined by mammalian luciferase assays. The C terminus of CART was fused to the Gal4 DNA-binding domain of pM expression vector. HEK293 cells (a) were co-transfected by reporter pTK-Galluc, internal control pcDNALacZ with empty vector pM (left) or with pMCART (right) using lipofectamine technique. Luciferase activity and β-galactosidase activity assays were performed at 28h following transfection. Luciferase activity of transgenes was normalized by β-galactosidase activity and is expressed as RLU (Luc/Gal). Primary cultured neuron cells (b) were transfected by reporter pTK-Gal-luc with pM (left) or with pMCART (right). Luciferase activity was determined as (a) and normalized against the protein concentration in the lysates, as measured by the Bradford method. The normalized values in RLU in (a) and (b) are the average of three independent sets of experiments.