Transgenesis in C. elegans - Caenorhabditis Elegans: Molecular Genetics and Development - page 164

Fig. 2 Schematic showing examples of different types of transgenes (not meant to be exhaustive).

binding sites ( Lall et al.,2006 ) found in WormBase may be informative as to
whether or not consideration should be given to possible post-transcriptional reg-
ulation in the design of a reporter fusion. Where it is desired to test only the effect of
a3 0 UTR on gene regulation, sensor transgenes carrying the particular 3 0 UTR can be
tested for responsiveness to miRNA regulation ( Wightman et al.,1993 ). Expression
patterns of miRNA genes can be determined with reporter fusions to GFP by using
sequences upstream of the mature miRNA as regulatory element ( Hayes et al.,
2006 ).
Researchers wishing to know whether the expression of a gene has been studied
should first check WormBase ( Table I ), where expression patterns carried out by
gene-specific or genomewide expression studies ( Hunt-Newbury et al., 2007 ) are
available. Information on WormBase is often not completely up-to-date and so a
literature search should always be performed at the same time. It should be antic-
ipated that a documented expression pattern might not have considered the particular
stage, tissue, or condition that is of interest. Hence, the investigator may simply wish
to obtain a previously constructed reporter strain, at least for comparison purposes,
from either the authors that produced them or from the Caenorhabditis Genetics
Center (CGC) at the University of Minnesota ( Table II ). Additional expression
information may exist in the form of in situ hybridization data published by the
Kohara laboratory in Japan ( Kohara, 2001 ), which is accessible in the Nematode
Expression Pattern Database ( Table I ).