Tata binding protein (TBP) promoter drives ubiquitous expression of marker transgene in the adult sea anemone nematostella vectensis

Yael Admoni, Itamar Kozlovski, Magda Lewandowska, Yehu Moran*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Nematostella vectensis has emerged as one as the most established models of the phylum Cnidaria (sea anemones, corals, hydroids and jellyfish) for studying animal evolution. The availability of a reference genome and the relative ease of culturing and genetically manipulating this organism make it an attractive model for addressing questions regarding the evolution of venom, development, regeneration and other interesting understudied questions. We and others have previously reported the use of tissue‐specific promoters for investigating the function of a tissue or a cell type of interest in vivo. However, to our knowledge, genetic regulators at the whole organism level have not been reported yet. Here we report the identification and utilization of a ubiquitous promoter to drive a wide and robust expression of the fluorescent protein mCherry. We generated animals containing a TATA binding protein (TBP) promoter upstream of the mCherry gene. Flow cytometry and fluorescent microscopy revealed expression of mCherry in diverse cell types, accounting for more than 90% of adult animal cells. Furthermore, we detected a stable mCherry expression at different life stages and throughout generations. This tool will expand the existing experimental toolbox to facilitate genetic engineering and functional studies at the whole organism level.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1081
Pages (from-to)1-11
Number of pages11
JournalGenes
Volume11
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2020

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • Gene expression
  • Nematostella vectensis
  • Transgenic animal
  • Ubiquitous promoter

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