Recombinant Baculoviruses Used to Study Estrogen Receptor Function in Human Osteosarcoma Cells

We report that modified baculoviruses, termed BacMam viruses, can efficiently deliver multiple genes into mammalian cells to generate a heterologous transcription factor/reporter gene system. Using human estrogen receptor (ER) as a model nuclear receptor, we demonstrate how this approach can be successfully applied to assay development in Saos-2 human osteosarcoma cells. BacMam viruses containing full-length cDNAs were constructed for both human ER subtypes, ERα and ERβ, and a third BacMam virus containing an ER-responsive reporter gene cassette. Using these viruses, we found that BacMam-ER expression/reporter constructs could be used to profile the effects of the agonist 17β-estradiol and the partial agonist raloxifene in human Saos-2 cells. A comparison of assay data obtained with the BacMam-based system with that using standard DNA transfections demonstrates that the two systems are functionally equivalent, giving comparable EC₅₀ and IC₅₀ values for estrogen and estrogen plus raloxifene treatments, respectively. Our results indicate that BacMam-mediated gene transfer offers a novel and efficient method for delivery of nuclear receptors and associated genes for mammalian cell-based assay development.