US Patent 8013114 Fusion proteins based upon somatostatin receptors

The present invention is directed to fusion proteins that can be used to assay gene transfer and expression both in vitro and in vivo. The fusion proteins contain a reporter protein, e.g. a somatostatin receptor, fused to a second protein, which may be a protein fusion tag. Alternatively, a fusion protein may be fused to a leader sequence. A leader sequence may localize an expressed protein, e.g localize a fusion protein to the cell membrane. The invention includes nucleic acids encoding the fusion proteins and methods of assaying for gene expression.