Improving genetic transformation rates in honeybees.

ABSTRACT: Functional genetic studies in honeybees have been limited by transformation tools that lead to a high rate of transposon integration into the germline of the queens. A high transformation rate is required to reduce screening efforts because each treated queen needs to be maintained in a separate honeybee colony. Here, we report on further improvement of the transformation rate in honeybees by using a combination of different procedures. We employed a hyperactive transposase protein (hyPBase^apis), we tripled the amount of injected transposase mRNAs and we injected embryos into the first third (anterior part) of the embryo. These three improvements together doubled the transformation rate from 19% to 44%. We propose that the hyperactive transposase (hyPBase^apis) and the other steps used may also help to improve the transformation rates in other species in which screening and crossing procedures are laborious.

SUBMITTER: Otte M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6224437 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature