Using microarrays to facilitate positional cloning: identification of tomosyn as an inhibitor of neurosecretion.

ABSTRACT: Forward genetic screens have been used as a powerful strategy to dissect complex biological pathways in many model systems. A significant limitation of this approach has been the time-consuming and costly process of positional cloning and molecular characterization of the mutations isolated in these screens. Here, the authors describe a strategy using microarray hybridizations to facilitate positional cloning. This method relies on the fact that premature stop codons (i.e., nonsense mutations) constitute a frequent class of mutations isolated in screens and that nonsense mutant messenger RNAs are efficiently degraded by the conserved nonsense-mediated decay pathway. They validate this strategy by identifying two previously uncharacterized mutations: (1) tom-1, a mutation found in a forward

SUBMITTER: Dybbs M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1183521 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature