The Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) is an important species in aquaculture and an excellent model system for laboratory studies. Functional genetic analysis using this species has been difficult because existing methods for producing transgenics are inefficient. Here we show that the Tol2 transposon system can be used to create transgenic tilapia with high efficiency. We constructed a line...

The African killifish Nothobranchius furzeri is the shortest-lived vertebrate that can be bred in captivity. N. furzeri comprises several wild-derived strains with striking differences in longevity ranging from 3 to 9 months, which makes it a powerful vertebrate model for aging research. The short life cycle of N. furzeri should also facilitate studies on adult traits that are specific to verte...

DNA transposons and retroviruses are versatile tools in functional genomics and gene therapy. To facilitate their application, we conducted a genome-wide insertion site profiling of the piggyBac (PB), Tol2 and Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposons and the murine leukemia virus (MLV) in mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs). PB and MLV preferred highly expressed genes, whereas Tol2 and SB preferred weakl...

A major impediment to the commercialization and cultivation of transgenic fish is the potential ecological risks they pose to natural environments: a problem that could be solved by the production of sterile transgenic fish. Here, we have developed an on-off reproductive containment strategy for fish that renders the offspring sterile but leaves their parents fertile. TG1 (Tol2-CMV-GFP-pA-CMV-g...

Transposons are found in virtually all organisms and play fundamental roles in genome evolution. They can also acquire new functions in the host organism and some have been developed as incisive genetic tools for transformation and mutagenesis. The hAT transposon superfamily contains members from the plant and animal kingdoms, some of which are active when introduced into new host organisms. We...

Viruses and transposons are efficient tools for permanently delivering foreign DNA into vertebrate genomes but exhibit diminished activity when cargo exceeds 8 kilobases (kb). This size restriction limits their molecular genetic and biotechnological utility, such as numerous therapeutically relevant genes that exceed 8 kb in size. Furthermore, a greater payload capacity vector would accommodate...

The advent of high-throughput sequencing technology facilitates the exploration of a variety of reference species outside the few established molecular genetic model systems. Bioinformatic and gene expression analyses provide new ways for comparative analyses between species, for instance, in the field of evolution and development. Despite these advances, a critical bottleneck for the explorati...

The amino-terminal sequence of the Tn3 transposase protein was determined to be Pro-Val-Asp-Phe-Leu-Thr-Thr-Glu-Gln-Val-Glu-Ser.... This was determined both from an active transposase protein purified from a transposase overproducing mutant strain and from a hybrid transposase-beta-galactosidase fusion protein. The amino acid sequence corresponded to the DNA sequence of the transposase gene beg...

Previous research in zebrafish has demonstrated that embryonic and larval regeneration melanocytes are derived from separate lineages. The embryonic melanocytes that establish the larval pigment pattern do not require regulative melanocyte stem cell (MSC) precursors, and are termed direct-developing melanocytes. In contrast, the larval regeneration melanocytes that restore the pigment pattern a...

Among DNA transposons, PIF/Harbinger is most recently identified superfamily characterized by 3 bp target site duplications (TSDs), flanked by 14-45 bp terminal inverted repeats (TIRs) and displaying DDD or DDE domain displaying transposase. Their autonomous elements contain two open reading frames, ORF1 and ORF2 encoding superfamily specific transposase and DNA-binding domain. Harbinger DNA tr...