Reporter gene - wikipedia Reporter gene This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. ( Learn how and when to remove these template messages ) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( March 2008 ) This article is missing information about the history of the subject. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. ( January 2012 ) A diagram of a how a reporter gene is used to study a regulatory sequence. In molecular biology, a reporter gene ( often simply reporter ) is a gene that researchers attach to a regulatory sequence of another gene of interest in bacteria, cell culture, animals or plants. Certain genes are chosen as reporters because the characteristics they confer on organisms expressing them are easily identified and measured, or because they are selectable markers. Reporter genes are often used as an indication of whether a certain gene has been taken up by or expressed in the cell or organism population. Contents 1 Common reporter genes 2 Transformation and transfection assays 3 Gene expression assays 4 Promoter assays 5 Further uses 6 See also 7 References 8 External links Common reporter genes To introduce a reporter gene into an organism, scientists place the reporter gene and the gene of interest in the same DNA construct to be inserted into the cell or organism. For bacteria or prokaryotic cells in culture, this is usually in the form of a circular DNA molecule called a plasmid. It is important to use a reporter gene that is not natively expressed in the cell or organism under study, since the expression of the reporter is being used as a marker for successful uptake of the gene of interest. Commonly used reporter genes that induce visually identifiable characteristics usually involve fluorescent and luminescent proteins. Examples include the gene that encodes jellyfish green fluorescent protein ( GFP ), which causes cells that express it to glow green under blue light, the enzyme luciferase, which catalyzes a reaction with luciferin to produce light, and the red fluorescent protein from the gene dsRed ( fr ). The GUS gene has been commonly used in plants but luciferase and GFP are becoming more common. A common reporter in bacteria is the E. coli lacZ gene, which encodes the protein beta - galactosidase. This enzyme causes bacteria expressing the gene to appear blue when grown on a medium that contains the substrate analog X-gal. An example of a selectable - marker which is also a reporter in bacteria is the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase ( CAT ) gene, which confers resistance to the antibiotic chloramphenicol. Gene name Gene product Assay Ref. lacZ β - galactosidase enzyme assay or Histochemical cat Chloramphenicol acetyltransferase Chloramphenicol acetylation gfp Green fluorescent protein Fluorescent rfp Red fluorescent protein microscopical, spectrophotometry Transformation and transfection assays Many methods of transfection and transformation -- two ways of expressing a foreign or modified gene in an organism -- are effective in only a small percentage of a population subjected to the techniques. Thus, a method for identifying those few successful gene uptake events is necessary. Reporter genes used in this way are normally expressed under their own promoter independent from that of the introduced gene of interest ; the reporter gene can be expressed constitutively ( that is, it is `` always on '' ) or inducibly with an external intervention such as the introduction of Isopropyl β - D - 1 - thiogalactopyranoside ( IPTG ) in the β - galactosidase system. As a result, the reporter gene 's expression is independent of the gene of interest 's expression, which is an advantage when the gene of interest is only expressed under certain specific conditions or in tissues that are difficult to access. In the case of selectable - marker reporters such as CAT, the transfected population of bacteria can be grown on a substrate that contains chloramphenicol. Only those cells that have successfully taken up the construct containing the CAT gene will survive and multiply under these conditions. Gene expression assays Reporter genes can also be used to assay for the expression of the gene of interest, which may produce a protein that has little obvious or immediate effect on the cell culture or organism. In these cases, the reporter is directly attached to the gene of interest to create a gene fusion. The two genes are under the same promoter elements and are transcribed into a single messenger RNA molecule. The mRNA is then translated into protein. In these cases it is important that both proteins be able to properly fold into their active conformations and interact with their substrates despite being fused. In building the DNA construct, a segment of DNA coding for a flexible polypeptide linker region is usually included so that the reporter and the gene product will only minimally interfere with one another. Reporter gene assay have been increasingly used in high throughput screening ( HTS ) to identify small molecule inhibitors and activators of protein targets and pathways for drug discovery and chemical biology. Because the reporter enzymes themselves ( e.g. firefly luciferase ) can be direct targets of small molecules and confound the interpretation of HTS data, novel coincidence reporter designs incorporating artifact suppression have been developed Promoter assays Reporter genes can be used to assay for the activity of a particular promoter in a cell or organism. In this case there is no separate `` gene of interest '' ; the reporter gene is simply placed under the control of the target promoter and the reporter gene product 's activity is quantitatively measured. The results are normally reported relative to the activity under a `` consensus '' promoter known to induce strong gene expression. Further uses A more complex use of reporter genes on a large scale is in two - hybrid screening, which aims to identify proteins that natively interact with one another in vivo. See also GUS reporter system References Jump up ^ Koo, J. ; Kim, Y. ; Kim, J. ; Yeom, M. ; Lee, I.C. ; Nam, H.G. ( 2007 ). `` A GUS / Luciferase Fusion Reporter for Plant Gene Trapping and for Assay of Promoter Activity with Luciferin - Dependent Control of the Reporter Protein Stability ''. Plant and Cell Physiology. 48 ( 8 ) : 1121 -- 1131. doi : 10.1093 / pcp / pcm081. PMID 17597079. Jump up ^ Nordgren, I.K. ; Tavassoli, A ( 2014 ). `` A bidirectional fluorescent two - hybrid system for monitoring protein - protein interactions ''. Molecular BioSystems. 10 ( 3 ) : 485 -- 90. doi : 10.1039 / c3mb70438f. PMID 24382456. Jump up ^ Cheng, K.C. ; Inglese, J. ( 2012 ). `` A coincidence reporter - gene system for high throughput screening ''. Nature Methods. 9 : 937. doi : 10.1038 / nmeth. 2170. PMC 4970863. PMID 23018994. Jump up ^ Hasson, S.A. ; Fogel, A.I. ; Wang, C. ; MacArthur, R. ; Guha, R. ; Heman - Ackahc, S. ; Martin, S. ; Youle, R.J. ; Inglese, J. ( 2015 ). `` Chemogenomic profiling of endogenous PARK2 expression using a genome - edited coincidence reporter ''. ACS Chem. Biol. 10 : 1188 -- 1197. doi : 10.1021 / cb5010417. PMID 25689131. Jump up ^ Jugder, Bat - Erdene ; Welch, Jeffrey ; Braidy, Nady ; Marquis, Christopher P. ( 2016 - 07 - 26 ). `` Construction and use of aCupriavidus necatorH16 soluble hydrogenase promoter ( PSH ) fusion togfp ( green fluorescent protein ) ''. PeerJ. 4 : e2269. doi : 10.7717 / peerj. 2269. ISSN 2167 - 8359. PMC 4974937. PMID 27547572. External links Research highlights and updated information on reporter genes. Staining Whole Mouse Embryos for β - Galactosidase ( lacZ ) Activity Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reporter_gene&oldid=829592464 '' Categories : Molecular biology Genetics Hidden categories : Articles needing additional references from March 2008 All articles needing additional references Articles to be expanded from January 2012 Articles with multiple maintenance issues Interlanguage link template link number Talk Contents About Wikipedia Deutsch Español Français Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית Nederlands 日本 語 Polski Português Русский Svenska தமிழ் Українська 中文 6 more Edit links This page was last edited on 9 March 2018, at 16 : 15. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: the study of proteins that genes create or express is called
Answer: molecular biology