Highly read on dev.biologists.org in May

A method that can systematically generate fruitflies to overexpress particular genes will help researchers to explore gene function in the model organism.

Konrad Basler at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and his colleagues developed a scalable method to overexpress genes at known sites in the genome of the fruitfly Drosophila. They coupled a system that allows controlled gene expression with one that allows site-specific integration of a newly introduced gene. The researchers used the technology to establish a library of 1,149 fly strains. The approach could be used to efficiently explore effects of overexpression in a comprehensive set of fly genes and to complement experiments with knockout flies, in which particular genes are disabled or deleted, the authors say.

Development 140, 2434–2442 (2013)