Silencing and un-silencing of tetracycline-controlled genes in neurons.

• Main Authors: Peixin Zhu, M Isabel Aller, Udo Baron, Sidney Cambridge, Melanie Bausen, Jan Herb, Jürgen Sawinski, Ali Cetin, Pavel Osten, Mark L Nelson, Sebastian Kügler, Peter H Seeburg, Rolf Sprengel, Mazahir T Hasan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2007-01-01
• Series: PLoS ONE
• Online Access: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC1888723?pdf=render

To identify the underlying reason for the controversial performance of tetracycline (Tet)-controlled regulated gene expression in mammalian neurons, we investigated each of the three components that comprise the Tet inducible systems, namely tetracyclines as inducers, tetracycline-transactivator (tTA) and reverse tTA (rtTA), and tTA-responsive promoters (P(tets)). We have discovered that stably integrated P(tet) becomes functionally silenced in the majority of neurons when it is inactive during development. P(tet) silencing can be avoided when it is either not integrated in the genome or stably-integrated with basal activity. Moreover, long-term, high transactivator levels in neurons can often overcome integration-induced P(tet) gene silencing, possibly by inducing promoter accessibility.