163 Zinc fingers and a green thumb: manipulating gene expression in plants David J Segaly, Justin T Stegez and Carlos F Barbas IIIç Artificial transcription factors can be rapidly constructed A variety of techniques have been developed to manip- from predefined zinc-finger modules to regulate virtually any ulate gene expression in plants. Increased expression of gene. Stable, heritable up- and downregulation of endogenous genes is most commonly achieved through endogenous genes has been demonstrated in transgenic transgene overexpression [1]. The introduction of tissue- plants. These advances promise new approaches for creating specific and inducible promoters has improved the utility functional knockouts and conditional overexpression, and of this approach, and efficient and robust plant transforma- for other gene discovery and manipulation applications in tion techniques have made the construction of transgenes plants. a relatively routine task. However, variable expression and co-suppression of transgenes often complicate this process. Addresses Furthermore, transgenes cannot accommodate alternative ÃThe Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology and the Department of splicing, which may be important for the appropriate Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, function of some transgenes [2]. California 92037, USA yDepartment of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA Reducing or eliminating the expression of a gene in plants zDiversa Corporation, San Diego, California 92121, USA is not as simple as overexpressing a gene. Gene disruption §The Scripps Research Institute, BCC-550, North Torrey Pines Road, by homologous recombination, tDNA insertions and che- La Jolla, California 92037, USA mical mutagenesis has been used successfully, but these e-mail:
[email protected] Correspondence: Carlos F Barbas III approaches are inefficient and time-consuming technolo- gies.