Use of eukaryotic expression technology in the functional analysis of cloned genes

The purpose of this chapter is to describe ways in which eukaryotic expression technology can be used to identify and to analyze the function of cloned eukaryotic genes. The assumption is made that the clone of interest has been sequenced and an open reading frame has been identified. Although expression of genomic sequences will be briefly discussed, in general it is assumed that the sequence of interest is a cDNA. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section describes several possible strategies for maximizing heterologous gene expression in the cells of higher eukaryotes. The second section deals with potential assays for gene expression based on function, and the third section describes some immunological approaches. Overall, the focus is on the use of techniques which yield information not obtainable from heterologous gene expression in bacteria or yeast