Creating cell type-specific mutants by enhancer mutagenesis
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, School of Medicine, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
- Corresponding author: steve_crews{at}unc.edu
Abstract
Cell signaling plays an essential role in development, and knowledge of the identities of the cells sending the signal is critical. This can be a challenge, since signaling pathways and ligands are commonly used at multiple times and in multiple cell types during development. One solution to this problem is to create cell type-specific mutants using CRISPR/Cas9 to mutate enhancers that control different patterns of expression. In this issue of Genes & Development, Rogers and colleagues (pp. 634–638) provide the first use of this method in Drosophila to solve a long-standing issue in patterning of the embryonic central nervous system.
Keywords
- Drosophila embryo
- EGFR regulatory networks
- rhomboid
- intermediate neuroblasts defective
- central nervous system
Footnotes
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Article is online at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.299586.117.
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