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Delivery codes for fly transgenics

Nature Genetics volume 40, pages 383–384 (2008)Cite this article

Chromosomal position effects influence the transcription of exogenously introduced transgenes. A new study identifies molecular tools that exploit these properties to fine-tune transgenic gene expression through the use of site-specific integration and the gypsy insulator element.

As in real estate, location is (almost) everything in transgenic biology. The local chromatin structure that surrounds a randomly inserted transgene considerably affects the level and spatial pattern of expression. In Drosophila, the traditional solution to this inherent variability has been to generate and sort through many independent insertions in order to find ones that match the experimental need, as this can be done quickly and cheaply. However, unlike in real estate, there is now a systematic solution for this problem in Drosophila. On page 476 of this issue, Michele Markstein and colleagues1 use information from two unrelated lines of work—site-specific recombination and position-effect variegation—to provide an elegant solution to transgenic biology's 'real estate' problem.

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Figure 1: Drosophila larvae carrying Gal4 drivers that promote the expression of UAS::eGFP transgenes in specific tissues.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jr. is in the Department of Genetics, Thomas C. Tubon, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.,

    Thomas C Tubon Jr

  2. Jerry C.-P. Yin is in the Departments of Genetics and Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA. jcyin@wisc.edu,

    Jerry C-P Yin

Authors
  1. Thomas C Tubon Jr
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  2. Jerry C-P Yin
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Tubon, T., Yin, JP. Delivery codes for fly transgenics. Nat Genet 40, 383–384 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng0408-383

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