Gene Targeting - Comparison With Gene Trapping

Comparison With Gene Trapping

Gene trapping is based on random insertion of a cassette while gene targeting targets a specific gene. Cassettes can be used for many different things while the flanking homology regions of gene targeting cassettes need to be adapted for each gene. This makes gene trapping more easily amenable for large scale projects than targeting. On the other hand, gene targeting can be used for genes with low transcriptions that would go undetected in a trap screen. Also, the probability of trapping increases with intron size. For gene targeting these compact genes are just as easily altered.