What is a GAL4 line?
Emma Martin
Published Mar 11, 2026
What is a GAL4 line?
Geneticists have created genetic variants of model organisms (typically fruit flies), called GAL4 lines, each of which expresses GAL4 in some subset of the animal’s tissues. These genetic instructions occur in every cell of the animal, but in most cells nothing happens since that cell is not producing GAL4.
What chromosome is GAL4 on?
| Line | Gene | Chr. |
|---|---|---|
| Line | Gene | Chr. |
| CR00323 | Marf | X |
| CR00446 | Dsor1 | X |
What are GAL4 drivers?
The GAL4/UAS system is commonly used in Drosophila to drive expression of a gene of interest (Brand & Perrimon, 1993). These lines can then be used to examine mutant alleles or RNAi-mediated gene knockdown.
How does Gal4 Drosophila?
The Gal4/UAS system It is a Drosophila geneticist’s main workhorse to turn genes on or off. Gal4 is a transcriptional activator that binds to UAS enhancer sequences found in DNA. It then recruits transcription machinery to the site to induce gene expression.
How many Gal4 lines are there?
Image data on a representative brain and VNC of each of the 6,650 lines can be viewed at
What is the yeast GAL system and explain the significance of UAS and GAL4?
The GAL4/UAS system refers to the use of yeast proteins which interact to induce the expression of genes from any organism in a tissue and temporal-specific manner.
How does enhancer trap work?
Glossary:Enhancer Trap. A type of DNA construct containing a reporter gene sequence downstream of a promoter that is capable of integrating into random chromosomal locations in mouse. Integration of the enhancer trap near an enhancer allows the expression of a new mRNA encoding the reporter gene.
Where is GAL4 protein found?
The Gal4 transcription factor is a positive regulator of gene expression of galactose-induced genes. This protein represents a large fungal family of transcription factors, Gal4 family, which includes over 50 members in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae e.g. Oaf1, Pip2, Pdr1, Pdr3, Leu3.
How does GAL4 work?
Gal4 is a transcriptional activator that binds to UAS enhancer sequences found in DNA. It then recruits transcription machinery to the site to induce gene expression. Thus, genes and siRNA encoded downstream of the UAS sequence are only expressed when Gal4 is expressed.
Where is Gal4 protein found?
What is ELAV Gal4?
Correspondingly, elav-GAL4 is a widely used driver line for neuron-specific ectopic gene expression. In contrast to a nuclear localisation as described for neurons (Robinow and White,1991; Yannoni and White,1997), ELAV in glial cells seems to be located predominantly in the cytoplasm.
What is Gal4 in yeast?
