In a recent Nature Communications publication Weinberg et al., (2019) report developing and testing a repertoire of inducible site-specific recombinases capable of being activated by different inducers such as small molecules, light, and temperature. While developed and tested in mammalian cells and transgenic mice, they will be widely useful in insect systems.
PhiC31
Parallel Cloning by Site Specific Recombination
Blanco-Redondo and Langenhan (2018) report recently in G3 valuable improvements in the φC31 system that enable the simultaneous targeted integration of two transgenes into distinct landing sites using a single source of φC31 recombinase. The development of modern genetic engineering […]
An In Vivo Chitin Visualization Tool
Sobala et al (2015) published the results of their efforts to develop a system that enables them to visualize the location of chitin in living insects. While they developed and tested their tool in Drosophila melanogaster it is designed in […]
Short Course on Insect Genetic Technologies – August 2015
The Insect Genetic Technologies Research Coordination Network is offering a short course on insect genetic technologies August 17-21, 2015. Today there are myriad technologies for modifying genomes. Technologies are emerging rapidly and it is a challenge for investigators to keep […]
Anopheles gambiae Transgenesis Tool Box – Major Additions
Volohonsky et. al. (2015) in a just-published paper in G3 entitled “Tools for Anopheles gambiae transgenesis” describe a wealth of new tools for creating transgenic An. gambiae. There has been a protocol for Anopheles gambiae transgenesis for over 15 years, […]
A Stable, Replaceable, Highly Efficient Transgene Expression System
Long et. al. in Scientific Reports describe a system for creating stable sites in the genome of Bombyx mori that allow for site-specific recombination-mediated integration of transgenes. Transposons are essential platforms for many insect genetic technologies and are typically used […]
New ΦC31 Resources
A rapid method for generating and finding ΦC31 landing sites (attP) with the desired expression characteristics as well as a new method for creating transgene arrays in vivo was recently described by Knapp et al (2015). Albeit these methods were […]
The Fly Facility at the University of Cambridge Department of Genetics
The Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge is primarily located in a large Edwardian building close to the centre of town. The department has a long and distinguished history of Drosophila research beginning with John Thoday’s evolutionary genetics […]
Clever CRISPR Knock-In Approach
“Reverse genetics is currently booming with the establishment of TALEN- and CRISPR-mediated genome engineering” Xu Zhang, Wouter Koolhaas, Frank Schnorrer (2014) Indeed it is booming but that does not mean that reverse genetics using CRISPRs or TALENS is easy. There […]
φC31 in Anopheles gambiae: A How-To
In terms of genetic engineering of insects, the current most commonly used technique for germline transformation involves the use of mobile transposable genetic elements, which are simply inefficient, have limited carrying capacities, and integrate randomly into genomes resulting in insertional […]