Cre Stoplight: A Red/Green Fluorescent Reporter of Cre Recombinase Expression in Living Cells

The Cre/lox system is a powerful genetic tool with which to manipulate the genome. Here, we describe the development of a simple reporter system for Cre recombinase, called the Cre Stoplight. In the absence of Cre, the red fluorescent protein is expressed; when Cre catalyzes a recombination event, t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yvonne S. Yang, Thomas E. Hughes
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2001-11-01
Series:BioTechniques
Online Access:https://www.future-science.com/doi/10.2144/01315st03
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Summary:The Cre/lox system is a powerful genetic tool with which to manipulate the genome. Here, we describe the development of a simple reporter system for Cre recombinase, called the Cre Stoplight. In the absence of Cre, the red fluorescent protein is expressed; when Cre catalyzes a recombination event, the green fluorescent protein is produced. Testing this system in transiently transfected cells showed that it produced robust signals (90% of the cells converted from red to green) when equal amounts of the plasmids encoding Cre recombinase and the Cre Stoplight were used. A 1:100 ratio of enzyme to reporter plasmid produced similar results, and a 1:10000 ratio was necessary to significantly reduce the number of cells converting to green (1%).
ISSN:0736-6205
1940-9818