Hi.
I know how the reporter gene works in a transfected cell. My question for anyone who would know is, WHY does it work?
From the time you make the gene construct (with a gene of interest for a protein of interest, say, ErbB2) and until the cell culture starts to expresses that on the plasma membrane of the individual cell, there are a million things that can go wrong, but usually don't, at least in a large percentage of the cells. Why is that? Why is the cell, first of all, allowing that new stretch of DNA, which is exogenous, to be transcribed into mRNA and then translated into the respective protein (say beta-Gal)? Any papers in the literature about this that anyone might know about?
Thank you very much!!!

Why is this so strange? Viruses routinely infect cells with new DNA/RNA that is ultimately translated into functional protein products.

Yes but viruses encode part of their own machinery to facilitate this process. I've often wondered why transfected plasmids are expressed, as well.

Omai