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Model Organisms in Drug Discovery

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130 DROSOPHILA – A MODEL SYSTEM<br />

Nature of<br />

mutations<br />

Table 5.1 Comparison of different mutagens used <strong>in</strong> Drosophila<br />

EMS X-ray P-element EP element<br />

Po<strong>in</strong>t mutations<br />

Small deletions<br />

Advantages Saturation<br />

screens<br />

Disadvantages No molecular<br />

anchor<br />

Special features Most frequently<br />

used<br />

Deletions<br />

Chromosome<br />

breaks<br />

Inversions<br />

Translocations<br />

Fast<br />

Big deletions<br />

cytologically<br />

visible<br />

Several genes<br />

deleted<br />

Ma<strong>in</strong>ly null<br />

alleles<br />

Loss-of-function<br />

mutations<br />

Molecular<br />

anchor<br />

Hot spots for<br />

<strong>in</strong>sertion<br />

Reporter<br />

assays<br />

Ga<strong>in</strong>-of-function<br />

mutations<br />

Molecular<br />

anchor<br />

Hot spots for<br />

<strong>in</strong>sertion<br />

Only method of<br />

efficiently<br />

<strong>in</strong>duc<strong>in</strong>g<br />

ectopic<br />

activation<br />

mutations, the appropriate mutagen is chosen (see Table 5.1). Transposable<br />

elements such as P and EP <strong>in</strong>sert <strong>in</strong>to the genome almost randomly (Spradl<strong>in</strong>g<br />

et al., 1999). At the <strong>in</strong>sertion site, they have any of the follow<strong>in</strong>g effects. When<br />

they <strong>in</strong>tegrate <strong>in</strong>to cod<strong>in</strong>g regions, they destroy the correspond<strong>in</strong>g gene, lead<strong>in</strong>g<br />

to a loss-of-function (LOF) mutation. This case, however, is rare because<br />

transposable elements have a preference to <strong>in</strong>sert <strong>in</strong>to non-cod<strong>in</strong>g sequences <strong>in</strong><br />

the 5’ region of the gene. When P elements with a reporter gene driven by a<br />

m<strong>in</strong>imal promoter come under the <strong>in</strong>fluence of an endogenous enhancer, the<br />

reporter will be expressed <strong>in</strong> the same way as the correspond<strong>in</strong>g gene (enhancer<br />

trap) (O’Kane and Gehr<strong>in</strong>g, 1987). In this way, genes are identified based on<br />

their expression pattern rather than their LOF phenotype. F<strong>in</strong>ally, EP elements<br />

conta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g an enhancer/promoter that is activated by the yeast transcription<br />

factor Gal4 are used to activate ectopically the nearby genes to produce a GOF<br />

mutation (Rorth et al., 1998) (see later section on EP overexpression screens).<br />

Obviously, transposable elements have the advantage that they serve as a<br />

molecular tag to isolate flank<strong>in</strong>g sequences. This makes the gene identification<br />

process very rapid. However, they are not suitable as a mutagen for saturation<br />

screens because the frequency with which the genes <strong>in</strong>activate is low due to their<br />

preferential jump<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>to non-cod<strong>in</strong>g 5’ regions. Furthermore, not all the genes

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