title: Enhanced gene trapping in mouse embryonic stem cells.
abstract: Gene trapping is used to introduce insertional mutations into genes of mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs). It is performed with gene trap vectors that simultaneously mutate and report the expression of the endogenous gene at the site of insertion and provide a DNA tag for rapid identification of the disrupted gene. Gene traps have been employed worldwide to assemble libraries of mouse ESC lines harboring mutations in single genes, which can be used to make mutant mice. However, most of the employed gene trap vectors require gene expression for reporting a gene trap event and therefore genes that are poorly expressed may be under-represented in the existing libraries. To address this problem, we have developed a novel class of gene trap vectors that can induce gene expression at insertion sites, thereby bypassing the problem of intrinsic poor expression. We show here that the insertion of the osteopontin enhancer into several conventional gene trap vectors significantly increases the gene trapping efficiency in high-throughput screens and facilitates the recovery of poorly expressed genes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Hematology, University of Frankfurt Medical School, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Schnütgen
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hansen
authors.forename: Silke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: De-Zolt
authors.forename: Carsten
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Horn
authors.forename: Marcus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lutz
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Floss
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wurst
authors.forename: Patricia Ruiz
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Noppinger
authors.forename: Harald
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: von Melchner
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001665:Binding Sites; D002460:Cell Line; D053595:Embryonic Stem Cells / Q000378:metabolism*; D004742:Enhancer Elements, Genetic; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D005822:Genetic Vectors; D051379:Mice; D016254:Mutagenesis, Insertional / Q000379:methods*; D050814:Octamer Transcription Factor-3 / Q000378:metabolism; D053495:Osteopontin / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D050814:Octamer Transcription Factor-3; D053495:Osteopontin