Skip to main content

Table 1 The most frequently used transposable element systems in metazoan models and some of their main characteristics

From: Technology transfer from worms and flies to vertebrates: transposition-based genome manipulations and their future perspectives

Transposon name

Transposon family

Tolerated cargo size

Target site sequence

Chromatic integration pattern

Minos (Drosophila hydei) [112]

Tc1

Possibly similar to other Tc1/mariner transposons

TA [113]

No preference for genes. Gene hits dominantly target introns [114]

Mos1 (Drosophila mauritiana) [115]

Mariner

Sensitive to increased cargo size [116]

TA [115]

Possibly similar to other Tc1/mariner transposons

P element (Drosophila melanogaster) [44,45]

P

Usually the cargo size is not limiting utility (10 to 20 kb routinely handled)

Heterogenic [117]

Bias for 5' regulatory sequences [61,62]

piggyBac (Trichoplusia ni cell line TN-368) [118]

piggyBac

Efficiency drops above 9.1 kb in pronucleus injected mice [68]

TTAA [119]

High preference for transcription units, (but the pattern is distinct from the P element pattern) [11,62,68]

Sleeping Beauty (salmonid fish) [67]

Tc1

Increased cargo size exponentially decreasing the efficiency in cultured cells [120]

TA [67]

Slight preference for genes. Gene hits dominantly target introns [12,121]

Tc1 (Caenorhabditis elegans) [29]

Tc1

Increased cargo size exponentially decreasing the efficiency in cultured cells [122]

TA [123]

Mild preference for introns in C. elegans [124]

Tc3 (C. elegans) [125]

Tc1

Possibly similar to Tc1

TA [123]

Mild preference for introns in C. elegans [124]

Tol2 (Oryzias latipes [medaka fish]) [126]

hAT

11.7 kb did not reduce transgenesis rates in zebrafish [127]; >10 kb transposons jump efficiently in human cells [98]

Heterogenic [72]

May prefer the 5' regions of genes [128]

  1. kb, kilobases.