TALENs in C. elegans?

Hi All,

I would like to inactivate a gene of interest using TALENs and am wondering whether anyone has had success with this approach. Since the 2006 Morton et al paper describing the use of ZFNs I haven’t found any other publications that have used ZFNs or TALENs to modify the worm genome even though both methods have been reported to work with other species. Does this reflect some ‘problem’ specific to the worm that makes generating a DSB via a targeted nuclease difficult? I know the transposon-mediated MosTIC method works so repair of a DSB, once formed, via template-directed homologous recombination is possible. Why the lack of publications on ZFNs or TALENs and worm genome modification?

Thanks

there’s a 2011 science paper (wood et al.) about using talens and zfns in worms. it sounded great, but others haven’t found it so easy to do. as far as i know it is not clear what the problem is…