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Site-specific cassette exchange and germline transmission with mouse ES cells expressing φC31 integrase

Nature Biotechnology volume 21, pages 321–324 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Currently two site-specific recombinases are available for engineering the mouse genome: Cre from P1 phage1,2 and Flp from yeast3,4. Both enzymes catalyze recombination between two 34–base pair recognition sites, lox and FRT, respectively, resulting in excision, inversion, or translocation of DNA sequences depending upon the location and the orientation of the recognition sites5,6. Furthermore, strategies have been designed to achieve site-specific insertion or cassette exchange7,8,9,10. The problem with both recombinase systems is that when they insert a circular DNA into the genome (trans event), two cis-positioned recognition sites are created, which are immediate substrates for excision. To stabilize the trans event, functional mutant recognition sites had to be identified8,9,10,11,12. None of the systems, however, allowed efficient selection-free identification of insertion or cassette exchange. Recently, an integrase from Streptomyces phage φC31 has been shown to function in Schizosaccharomyces pombe13 and mammalian14,15 cells. This enzyme recombines between two heterotypic sites: attB and attP. The product sites of the recombination event (attL and attR) are not substrates for the integrase16. Therefore, the φC31 integrase is ideal to facilitate site-specific insertions into the mammalian genome.

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Figure 1: φC31 integrase–mediated insertion and cassette exchange strategy.
Figure 2: Sequence of the attP and attB sites used.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Francis Stewart for the pCAAGSFlpeIRESpuro plasmid, and Nikolett Kabacs for technical assistance, and Sandra Tondat and Sarang Kulkarni for generating chimeric mice. We thank Nishma Kassam and Richard Behringer for discussion and excellent proofreading of the manuscript. This work was supported by funds from NIH (grant no. 5 R01 DA14784 02) and a grant from the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. A.N. is a senior scientist of CIHR.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, 600 University Avenue, Toronto, M5G 1X5, Ontario, Canada

    Gusztav Belteki, Marina Gertsenstein & Andras Nagy

  2. Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

    Gusztav Belteki

  3. US Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service, Plant Gene Expression Center, Albany, 94710, CA

    David W. Ow

  4. Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, CA, USA

    David W. Ow

  5. Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, M5S 1A8, Ontario, Canada

    Andras Nagy

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  1. Gusztav Belteki
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Correspondence to Andras Nagy.

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Belteki, G., Gertsenstein, M., Ow, D. et al. Site-specific cassette exchange and germline transmission with mouse ES cells expressing φC31 integrase. Nat Biotechnol 21, 321–324 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt787

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