Novel GUS expression patterns following transposition of an enhancer trap Ds element in Arabidopsis

Enhancer trap derivatives of the maize Dissociation (Ds) transposon were introduced into Arabidopsis thaliana. The enhancer trap Ds was so designed that upon transposition to sites containing regulatory sequences in adjacent genomic DNA, transcription of a Ds-borne beta-glucuronidase (GUS) gene would be activated. Sixty percent of all transposition events were associated with GUS expression patterns including one linked to a mutant phenotype. Patterns of GUS expression were found in various organs and were stably inheritable in the F-4 and F-5 progenies. These results demonstrate the potential value of the technique as a means for detection of developmentally regulated genes and analysis of their function. The enhancer trap construct used in our experiments, as well as the seeds of primary transformants are publicly available.