Enhancer Trap

An enhancer trap is a transgenic construction for the identification of enhancers, produced by the fusing of two proteins, genes for which are inserted into the genome. The enhancer trap structure contains a mobile element (necessary for random insertion in the genome) usually some sort of P element (a promoter that must be sensitive to the enhancer) and a reporter gene. The reporter gene is necessary for identification of the spatial regulation by enhancers. The most common and basic enhancer traps are: P from the bacterium E. coli and P from yeast.

The enhancer trap also uses some sort of visible marker that allows the new insertions to be recognized such as the white gene, resulting in a red eye color in Drosophila or ampicillin resistance for E. coli.

There exists a large number of fly stocks containing GAL4 insertions and an equally large number of fly stocks containing an UAS DNA sequence followed by a gene of interest, which permits the expression of a large number of genes with different GAL4 "drivers". Rather than generating transgenic flies with the enhancer linked directly to the gene of interest (which takes about a year, if you are starting without the appropriate DNA construct), you simply mate (cross) one transgenic fly with another transgenic fly.

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