1. ¹The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center for Transposon Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
2. ²Discovery Genomics, Inc., Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA

Correspondence: R. Scott McIvor, The Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development, 6-160 Jackson Hall, 321 Church Street SE, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. Fax: +1 612 625 9810. E-mail: mcivor@mail.med.umn.edu

Received 23 August 2005; Revised 3 October 2005; Accepted 5 October 2005.

Abstract

Sleeping Beauty (SB) is a DNA transposon capable of mediating gene insertion and long-term expression in vertebrate cells when co-delivered with a source of transposase. In all previous reports of SB-mediated gene insertion in somatic cells, the transposase component has been provided by expression of a co-delivered DNA molecule that has the potential for integration into the host cell genome. Integration and continued expression of a gene encoding SB transposase could be problematic if it led to transposon re-mobilization and reintegration. We addressed this potential problem by supplying the transposase-encoding molecule in the form of mRNA. We show that transposase-encoding mRNA can effectively mediate transposition in vitro in HT1080 cells and in vivo in mouse liver following co-delivery with a recoverable transposon or with a luciferase transposon. We conclude that in vitro-transcribed mRNA can be used as an effective source of transposase for SB-mediated transposition in mammalian cells and tissues.