Establishment of a tet-on gene expression system in glucose-responsive and -unresponsive MIN6 cells.

The tetracycline (or doxycycline)-inducible gene expression (Tet-On) system developed by Gossen and Bujard (1) is useful for controlling the expression of targeted genes and for determining the roles of the gene products in cellular functions. The Tet-On system has recently been applied to the rat insulinoma cell line INS-1 to study the roles of wild-type and mutant genes in insulin secretion (2,3). We have recently established two cell lines, MIN6-m9, and MIN6-m14, derived from the mouse insulinoma-derived cell line MIN6. MIN6-m9 and MIN6-m14 cells are glucose-responsive and glucose-unresponsive, respectively. To study the roles of newly identified genes in pancreatic -cell functions, we have established a Tet-On system in these MIN6 sublines.