Tet-off - Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages and Disadvantages

The Tet system has advantages over Cre, FRT, and ER (estrogen receptor) conditional gene expression systems. In the Cre and FRT systems, activation or knockout of the gene is irreversible once recombination is accomplished, whereas, in Tet and ER systems, it is reversible. The Tet system has very tight control on expression, whereas ER system is somewhat leaky. However, the Tet system, which depends on transcription and subsequent translation of a target gene, is not as fast-acting as the ER system, which stabilizes the already-expressed target protein upon hormone administration. Also, since the 19bp tet-o sequence is naturally absent from mammalian cells, pleiotropy is thought to be minimized compared to hormonal methods of control. When using the Tet system in cell culture, it is important to confirm that each batch of fetal bovine serum is tested to confirm that contaminating tetracyclines are absent or are too low to interfere with inducibility.