help with transfection selection - (Jun/01/2005 )

why use puromycin to select retrovirus transfected animal cells? How does it work?

Puromycin is an aminonucleoside antibiotic produced by Streptomyces alboniger. It specifically inhibits peptidyl transfer on both prokaryotic and eukaryotic ribosomes. The antibiotic inhibits the growth of Gram positive bacteria and various animal and insect cells. Fungi and Gram negative bacteria are resistant
due to the low permeability of the antibiotic. Since more than 30 years, puromycin has been widely used as a basic tool for studying protein synthesis. Now, puromycin hydrochloride is particularly useful for the selection of cell types harbouring plasmids carrying puromycin resistance genes.
hence i'll guess you retrovirus infected cells are carrying a puromycin resistance gene that is brang by the retrovirus

fred

thx