Transposon-Assisted Genetic Engineering with Mos1-Mediated Single-Copy Insertion (MosSCI).

Abstract

Transgenesis in model organisms is necessary to determine the function, expression, and subcellular localization of gene products. In Caenorhabditis elegans, injected DNA can be propagated as multicopy extrachromosomal arrays but transgenes in arrays are mosaic, over-expressed in some tissues and silenced in the germline. Here, a method to insert a transgene into a specific genomic location called Mos1-mediated single-copy insertion (MosSCI) is described. Single-copy insertion allows transgene expression at levels that approximate endogenous gene expression as well as expression in the germline.