title: High-throughput selection of retrovirus producer cell lines leads to markedly improved efficiency of germ line-transmissible insertions in zebra fish.
abstract: Vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein G-pseudotyped mouse retroviral vectors have been used as mutagens for a large-scale insertional mutagenesis screen in the zebra fish. To reproducibly generate high-titer virus stocks, we devised a method for rapidly selecting cell lines that can yield high-titer viruses and isolated a producer cell line that yields virus at a high titer on zebra fish embryos. Virus produced from this line, designated GT virus, is nontoxic following injection of zebra fish blastulae and efficiently infects embryonic cells that give rise to the future germ line. Using GT virus preparations we generated roughly 500,000 germ line-transmissible proviral insertions in a population of 25,000 founder fish in about 2 months. The GT virus contains a gene trap, and trap events can be detected in the offspring of almost every founder fish. We discuss potential applications of this highly efficient method for generating germ line-transmissible insertions in a vertebrate
authors.affiliation: Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Wenbiao
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Shawn
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Burgess
authors.forename: Greg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Golling
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Amsterdam
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hopkins
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002460:Cell Line; D005822:Genetic Vectors; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins; D051379:Mice; D016254:Mutagenesis, Insertional; D012190:Retroviridae / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D015027:Zebrafish / Q000196:embryology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000821:virology
chemical_list: C028391:G protein, vesicular stomatitis virus; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins