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The Q-system: A Versatile Repressible Binary Expression System

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Drosophila

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 2540))

Abstract

Binary expression systems are useful genetic tools for experimentally labeling or manipulating the function of defined cells. The Q-system is a repressible binary expression system that consists of a transcription factor QF (and the recently improved QF2/QF2w), the inhibitor QS, a QUAS-geneX effector, and a drug that inhibits QS (quinic acid). The Q-system can be used alone or in combination with other binary expression systems, such as GAL4/UAS and LexA/LexAop. In this review chapter, we discuss the past, present, and future of the Q-system for applications in Drosophila and other organisms. We discuss the in vivo application of the Q-system for transgenic labeling, the modular nature of QF that allows chimeric or split transcriptional activators to be developed, its temporal control by quinic acid, new methods to generate QF2 reagents, intersectional expression labeling, and its recent adoption into many emerging experimental species.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Steve Chivasa, Tim Davies, and Jessica Mavica for insightful comments on the manuscript. OF was funded by the Laidlaw fellowship. OR was funded by the Wellcome Trust (217440/Z/19/Z) and the Royal Society (RGS\R2\192005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biosciences, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Orsolya Fölsz & Olena Riabinina

  2. Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Giesel School of Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH, USA

    Chun-Chieh Lin

  3. Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Darya Task

  4. The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Christopher J. Potter

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  1. Orsolya Fölsz
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  2. Chun-Chieh Lin
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  3. Darya Task
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  4. Olena Riabinina
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  5. Christopher J. Potter
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Correspondence to Christopher J. Potter .

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  1. Institute of Genetics, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Christian Dahmann

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Fölsz, O., Lin, CC., Task, D., Riabinina, O., Potter, C.J. (2022). The Q-system: A Versatile Repressible Binary Expression System. In: Dahmann, C. (eds) Drosophila. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2540. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2541-5_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2541-5_2

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