Mini Promoters for Brain-Specific Gene Expression

Region and cell-specific expression of a gene of interest is a critical experimental consideration, especially when studying the human brain which by some estimates contains 100 billion cells and possibly 100 trillion cellular connections. In order to address the lack of tools available for brain-region specific gene expression, a team of investigators joined forces to create the Pleiades Promoter Project (www.pleiades.org). Using a novel design pipeline, they produced MiniPromoters derived from endogenous human gene promoter sequences and combined them with reporter genes such as EGFP, EGFP/Cre or LacZ in constructs designed for knock-in insertion of transgenes to yield region specific expression as verified by in vivo experiments in mouse brain. Some MiniPromoters produced neuron or glia specific expression, as expected based on the gene the promoter was taken from, while others produced interesting, but unrelated expression patterns. The MiniPromoters available in the Pleiades Plasmids offer researches a more refined tool to obtain localized gene expression in the brain than previously available.