jhallum

Giving myself a crash course in genetics here, and I can't seem to figure out what is meant by ectopic expression of a gene. I'm an astronomer, dammit, not a biologist! Help?

theyeti

It just means expressing a gene in a cell line that it's not normally expressed in. For instance, making a gene that is expressed in neural tissues be expressed in liver tissue so that it's easier to study.

theyeti

jhallum

So, in the case of the multi-legged shrimp from UCSD they are taking the Ubx/AbdA gene from the abdomen of each, and expressing them in the thorax areas, is that right?

Thanks for your help!

[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: jhallum ]</p>

theyeti

I'm afraid I haven't read the paper, so I don't know if that's what they did (and I don't think it is). But if they did do something like that, then I'm pretty sure it would qualify as ectopic expression. Hopefully, someone who's read the paper will answer.

theyeti