Canonical WNT signaling plays multiple roles in lung organogenesis and repair by regulating early progenitor cell fates: investigation has been enhanced by canonical Wnt reporter mice, TOPGAL, BATGAL and Axin2(LacZ). Although widely used, it remains unclear whether these reporters convey the same information about canonical Wnt signaling. We therefore compared beta-galactosidase expression patt...

The most commonly used enzymatic reporter molecule, Escherichia coli beta-galactosidase (beta-gal; beta-D-galactoside galactohydrolase, EC 3.2.1.23), fails to readily diffuse into axons; consequently, the morphologies of beta-gal-labeled neurons cannot directly be determined. For analysis of neuronal pathfinding and synaptic connectivity, this information is essential. We have constructed an ax...

To study the in vivo expression of the murine Tie2 gene, we have targeted the hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase (Hprt) gene locus to generate two single-copy transgenic mice: T1, containing the 2,100-bp Tie2 promoter upstream from the beta-galactosidase (LacZ) gene, and T5, which also included an enhancing element originating from the first intron of the Tie2 gene. Comparing T1 and T5 embr...

We described principle and application of an inducible system for identification of target genes of a given mycobacterial protein with a regulatory function. This vector system, a promoterprobe vector, carries (i) promoterless lacZ as the reporter gene and (ii) the mycobacterial gene encoding the regulatory protein under the transcriptional control of the promoter of highly inducible mycobacter...

The developmental brain gene NPAS3 stands out as a hot spot in human evolution because it contains the largest number of human-specific, fast-evolving, conserved, non-coding elements. In this paper we studied 2xHAR142, one of these elements that is located in the fifth intron of NPAS3. Using transgenic mice, we show that the mouse and chimp 2xHAR142 orthologues behave as transcriptional enhance...

To address the role of transient torsional stress in transcription, we have utilized the regulated expression of HO endonuclease in yeast to create double-strand breaks in DNA templates in vivo at preselected sites. Linearization of circular minichromosomes, either 2 kb upstream or immediately downstream of a lacZ reporter gene controlled by the yeast metallothionein gene (CUP1) promoter, did n...

We have developed an effective, easy-to-use two-step system for the site-directed insertion of large genetic constructs into arbitrary positions in the Escherichia coli chromosome. The system uses lambda-Red mediated recombineering accompanied by the introduction of double-strand DNA breaks in the chromosome and a donor plasmid bearing the desired insertion fragment. Our method, in contrast to ...

Less than 100 cis-regulatory DNAs have been characterized in the context of transgenic metazoan embryos. Here we investigate the feasibility of conducting a genome-wide search for tissue-specific enhancers in the ascidian Ciona intestinalis. A total of 138 random genomic DNA fragments with an average size of 1.7 kb were separately placed 5' of a lacZ reporter gene. Eleven of the lacZ fusion gen...

Pupose:In order to develop a treatment for recessive retinitis pigmentosa the ultimate objective is to introduce a normal copy of the abnormal gene into photoreceptors. The post-mitotic status of photoreceptor cells make them unsuitable targets for existing retroviral vectors. One of the strategies that we have been exploiting is adenoviral (AV) mediated gene transfer. Here we report successful...