Gene therapy applications of naked DNA constructs for genetic disorders have been limited because of lack of permanent transgene expression. This limitation, however, can be overcome by the Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposable element, which can achieve permanent transgene expression through genomic integration from plasmid DNA. To date, only one example of an in vivo gene therapy application of t...

A novel mapping method based on touchdown PCR was developed for identifying a transposon insertion site in genomic DNA using a hybrid consensus-degenerate primer in combination with a specific primer that anneals to the transposon. The method was tested using Xanthomonas citri transposon mutants. PCR products contained adjacent DNA regions that belonged to both X. citri genomic DNA and the tran...

Transposon mutagenesis, in combination with parallel sequencing, is becoming a powerful tool for en-masse mutant analysis. A probability generating function was used to explain observed miniHimar transposon insertion patterns, and gene essentiality calls were made by transposon insertion frequency analysis (TIFA). TIFA incorporated the observed genome and sequence motif bias of the miniHimar tr...

High-throughput analysis of genome-wide random transposon mutant libraries is a powerful tool for (conditional) essential gene discovery. Recently, several next-generation sequencing approaches, e.g. Tn-seq/INseq, HITS and TraDIS, have been developed that accurately map the site of transposon insertions by mutant-specific amplification and sequence readout of DNA flanking the transposon inserti...

Transposon mutagenesis of a clinical isolate of Morganella morganii, G1492 (tigecycline MIC of 4 microg/ml), yielded two insertion knockout mutants for which tigecycline MICs were 0.03 microg/ml. Transposon insertions mapped to acrA, which is constitutively overexpressed in G1492, suggesting a role of the AcrAB efflux pump in decreased susceptibility to tigecycline in M. morganii.

The Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposon system has been used as a somatic mutagen to identify candidate cancer genes. In previous studies, efficient leukemia/lymphoma formation on an otherwise wild-type genetic background occurred in mice undergoing whole-body mobilization of transposons, but was accompanied by high levels of embryonic lethality. To explore the utility of SB for large-scale cancer ...

Transgenic domestic animals represent an alternative to bioreactors for large-scale production of biopharmaceuticals and could also provide more accurate biomedical models than rodents. However, their generation remains inefficient. Recently, DNA transposons allowed improved transgenesis efficiencies in mice and pigs. In this work, Tn5 and Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposon systems were evaluated ...

In vivo genetic footprinting was developed in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to simultaneously assess the importance of thousands of genes for the fitness of the cell under any growth condition. We have developed in vivo genetic footprinting for Escherichia coli, a model bacterium and pathogen. We further demonstrate the utility of this technology for rapidly discovering genes that affect t...

Transformation frequencies of a mariner-based transposon system in Rickettsia rickettsii were determined using a plaque assay system for enumeration and isolation of mutants. Sequence analysis of insertion sites in both R. rickettsii and R. prowazekii indicated that insertions were random. Transposon mutagenesis provides a useful tool for rickettsial research.

The transposon MTnSag1 from Streptococcus agalactiae carried an IS1-like transposase gene and the lnu(C) gene, which encoded a lincosamide nucleotidyltransferase. MTnSag1 could be mobilized by the conjugative transposon Tn916. An intermediate circular form of MTnSag1 and a putative origin of transfer at the 3' end of the lnu(C) gene were characterized.