Flexible manipulation of Omb levels in the endogenous expression region of Drosophila wing by combinational overexpression and suppression strategy

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Xu-Bo Zhang - , Shanxi University (Author)
  • Wei Dong - , Université Côte d'Azur (Author)
  • Kai-Xia Li - , Shanxi University (Author)
  • Juan-Juan Wang - , Shanxi University (Author)
  • Jie Shen - , China Agricultural University (Author)
  • Bernard Moussian - , Chair of Applied Zoology (OTT professorship), Shanxi University, Université Côte d'Azur (Author)
  • Jian-Zhen Zhang - , Shanxi University (Author)

Abstract

Manipulating an exogenous or endogenous gene of interest at a defined level is critical for a wide variety of experiments. The Gal4/UAS system has been widely used to direct gene expression for studying complex genetic and biological problems in Drosophila melanogaster and other model organisms. Driven by a given tissue-specific Gal4, expressing UAS-transgene or UAS-RNAi (RNA interference) could be used to up- or down-regulate target gene expression, respectively. However, the efficiency of the Gal4/UAS system is roughly predefined by properties of transposon vector constructs and the insertion site in the transgenic stock. Here, we describe a simple way to modulate optomotor blind (omb) expression levels in its endogenous expression region of the wing disc. We co-expressed UAS-omb and UAS-omb-RNAi together under the control of dpp-Gal4 driver which is expressed in the omb expression region of the wing pouch. The repression effect is more sensitive to temperature than that of overexpression. At low temperature, overexpression plays a dominant role but the efficiency is attenuated by UAS-omb-RNAi. In contrast, at high temperature RNAi predominates in gene expression regulation. By this strategy, we could manipulate omb expression levels at a moderate level. It allows us to manipulate omb expression levels in the same tissue between overexpression and repression at different stages by temperature control.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)14-21
Number of pages8
JournalInsect science
Volume27
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2020
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 85069911707

Keywords

Keywords

  • Animals, Animals, Genetically Modified/genetics, Drosophila Proteins/genetics, Drosophila melanogaster/genetics, Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental, Nerve Tissue Proteins/genetics, Signal Transduction, T-Box Domain Proteins/genetics, Wings, Animal/growth & development