Jiang He
Fluorescent proteins as a scaffold for cell-specific gene manipulation
Background
- Lots of GFP lines
- not a lot of Cre / lox or Gal4 lines (etc) for manipulating gene expression.
- camilid VHH antigen binding domain (‘nanobody’).
- Previous work: different nanobodies against GFP change it’s fluorescent intensity (‘enhancers’ and ‘minimizers’)
This paper
- screen for GFP nanobodies
- recruit VP16 to target genes in a GFP dependent manner.
- why not genetically encode, reporter gene and nano-bodies, then cross this to a GFP mouse line.
- Concern: low level GFP still respond
- GFP lines not very specific — have a high expressing cell type and a low expressing cell type.