We've attempted PEI transfection as well as lentiviral transduction to over express a tagged protein under a CMV promoter. The plasmid is highly expressed in Hek293T cells but not in the MEFs.
I have experienced the same thing, CMV promoter did not work in murine cell lines. It could be that this promoter is silenced in these cell lines due to previous infections with murine Cytomegalovirus..?
I have switched to the EF-1alpha promoter, that worked perfectly!
you are right, there are some reports describing LPS to increase CMV promoter activity. However, I have never tried it myself. Also be careful since additional treatment will introduce another variable to your experiments - maybe switching the promoter would be more straightforward?