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G-TRACE: rapid Gal4-based cell lineage analysis in Drosophila

Abstract

We combined Gal4-UAS and the FLP recombinase–FRT and fluorescent reporters to generate cell clones that provide spatial, temporal and genetic information about the origins of individual cells in Drosophila melanogaster. We named this combination the Gal4 technique for real-time and clonal expression (G-TRACE). The approach should allow for screening and the identification of real-time and lineage-traced expression patterns on a genomic scale.

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Figure 1: The G-TRACE analysis system.
Figure 2: G-TRACE analysis reveals new cell lineage markers.
Figure 3: Stage dependence of G-TRACE patterns.

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Acknowledgements

K.T.N., Eu.K., N.E.L., Ed.K., A.N.P., D.S., P.T., M.-T.D., K.Y. and A.C. participated as undergraduate research students in the UCLA Undergraduate Research Consortium in Functional Genomics, which is supported by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor's Award to U.B. C.J.E. was supported by a US National Institutes of Health-UCLA Vascular Biology training grant T32HL69766. J.M.O. and G.B.C. were supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor's award and were instructors in the UCLA Undergraduate Research Consortium in Functional Genomics. This work was supported by National Institutes of Health grants R01EY008152 and R01HL067395 to U.B. We thank G. Struhl (Columbia University) and P. O'Farrell (University of California, San Francisco) for providing DNA reagents.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

C.J.E. and U.B. devised the G-TRACE system. C.J.E., Eu.K., K.Y. and A.C. generated the G-TRACE system. C.J.E., K.T.N., Eu.K., N.E.L., Ed.K., A.N.P., D.S., P.T., M.-T.D., K.Y. and A.C. generated data. C.J.E., J.M.O., G.B.C. and U.B. provided instruction and supervision. V.H. provided the brain schematics and helped interpret brain lineages. J.M.O. and K.T.N. generated the online database. C.J.E. and U.B. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Utpal Banerjee.

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Supplementary Figures 1–6, Supplementary Tables 1–5, Supplementary Data (PDF 2703 kb)

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Evans, C., Olson, J., Ngo, K. et al. G-TRACE: rapid Gal4-based cell lineage analysis in Drosophila. Nat Methods 6, 603–605 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1356

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