Published online 1 March 2005
Methods Online |
Tagging genes with cassette-exchange sites
1Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine, Via P. Castellino 111, 80131 Naples, Italy 2Istituto di Ricerche di Biologia Molecolare P. Angeletti Via Pontina km 30,600, 00040 Pomezia, Rome, Italy 3Medical Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, Federico II University Via S. Pansini, 5, 80131 Naples, Italy
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +39 081 6132207; Fax: +39 081 5790919; Email: ballabio{at}tigem.it
Received December 28, 2004. Revised February 15, 2005. Accepted February 15, 2005.
In an effort to make transgenesis more flexible and reproducible, we developed a system based on novel 5' and 3' gene trap vectors containing heterospecific Flp recognition target sites and the corresponding exchange vectors allowing the insertion of any DNA sequence of interest into the trapped locus. Flp-recombinase-mediated cassette exchange was demonstrated to be highly efficient in our system, even in the absence of locus-specific selection. The feasibility of constructing a library of ES cell clones using our gene trap vectors was tested and a thousand insertion sites were characterized, following electroporation in ES cells, by RACEPCR and sequencing. We validated the system in vivo for two trapped loci in transgenic mice and demonstrated that the reporter transgenes inserted into the trapped loci have an expression pattern identical to the endogenous genes. We believe that this system will facilitate in vivo studies of gene function and large-scale generation of mouse models of human diseases, caused by not only loss but also gain of function alleles.
Corresponding may also be addressed to Riccardo Cortese. Tel: +39 06 910932200; Fax: +39 06 91093200; Email: riccardo_cortese{at}merck.com
The authors wish it to be known that, in their opinion, the first two authors should be regarded as joint First Authors
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