NIS PROTEINS WITH ALTERED ANION SPECIFICITY

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): NIS, the sodium iodide symporter, mediates the uptake and concentration of iodide in the thyroid gland, providing the basis for diagnostic thyroid radioimaging and radioiodine therapy, which are used routinely in clinical and veterinary practice. When the NIS gene is introduced into non-thyroid cells, they can, like thyroid cells, be detected using iodide/pertechnetate radioimaging and/or destroyed using iodide radiotherapy. Imanis Life Sciences is developing NIS reporter gene technology for accurate, sensitive, high resolution monitoring of gene regulation and cell fate in living subjects. Unlike luciferase and GFP reporter genes, which rely on optical imaging, NIS can be used for quantitative expression monitoring inlarge animals and humans as well as in deep-seated mouse tissues because, unlike photons, gamma rays are minimally attenuated by the tissues through which they pass. Additional advantages of NIS are the ready availability of clinically approved NIS-sp