Discovery and analysis of novel genes using a gene-trap approach

2009 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20710152
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Applied genomics
• Research Institution: Nara Institute of Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: SHIGEOKA Toshiaki Nara Institute of Science and Technology, バイオサイエンス研究科, 研究員 (40457148)
• Project Period (FY): 2008 – 2009
• Keywords: ノックアウトマウス / 遺伝子トラップ / ES細胞

Research Abstract

Gene trapping is a mutagenesis technique by which an exogenous DNA fragment is randomly inserted into the genome to disrupt gene function. We developed a novel gene-trap strategy which suppresses nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) of the selectable-marker mRNA and permits the trapping of transcriptionally silent genes. By using this method, genes in mouse ES cells were randomly disrupted, and the cDNA fragments derived from the trapped genes were analyzed. In the result, we found that these cDNAs contain a significant number of novel cDNAs that show no homology to previously characterized genes in any database, indicating that our novel gene-trap strategy is a powerful tool for discovery and analysis of novel genes.