Finding C. elegans balancers which contain GFP

Model Organism: Worms Scientific Discussion
1

Hello,

I tried to find the information about balancers that have fluorescence marker.
But I couldn’t.

Does anyone know where can I found the list of balancers that contain GFP (or any other fluorescence protein)?

Thanks a lot.

2

Hiya,

Check out the chapter of Genetic Balancers on WormBook (Genetic balancers).

Several researchers have performed integration experiments with a myo-2::GFP construct, resulting in GFP-tagged variants of several existing balancers and many integrations into non-balancer chromosomes. The former group is very useful, often allowing unequivocal identification of lethal homozygotes by virtue of the absence of GFP expression (see the handbook section for GFP variants of mIn1, [i][b]nT1, and hT2[/b][/i]).

edit: Also check this out: High-throughput fluorescence-based isolation of live C. elegans larvae | Nature Protocols

3

I’m partial to this list:

http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~dgmweb/research1_strains2.htm

4

Both lists are good, but incomplete. I found a couple both lists are missing:
myo-2::gfp-marked mnC1 II
myo-2::gfp-marked qC1 III
myo-2::rfp-marked qC1 III

I had thought there were some others from the same project, but if so they’re not at the CGC.

5

Come to think of it, there are a couple of others I know of:

+/eT1 nIs267[Pmyo-2::rfp]

+/nT1 qIs51[Pmyo-2::gfp; Ppes-10::gfp; PF22B7.9::gfp]
also an nT1 dominant Unc (n754d) variant at the CGC (qIs50)

Sure would be nice to have szT1 cleaned up and GFP tagged.

6

When I was in grad school, as part of the lab-wide effort Erik organized that generated the marked balancers I mentioned above (and I think also some others?), we did try to mark szT1, but did not succeed. The most likely explanation for the result was that szT1 had broken down in the strain that was injected to make transgenic lines prior to gamma irradiation, so we successfully marked a balancer, but it was no longer an intact szT1. The most likely explanation was that the balancer was now a free Dup, as I recall, of unknown extent (except that it complemented whatever markers were being used to watch for balancer loss). We did make gfp- and rfp-marked versions of that uncharacterized balancer though, and they’re sitting in the freezer.