High efficiency expression of transfected genes in a Drosophila melanogaster haploid (1182) cell line

Drosophila tissue culture cells have been important in the study of homologous promoters and more recently in the study of mammalian transcriptional factors such as CTF and SP1 which bind and stimulate transcription from transfected genes. In this paper we show that a Drosophila melanogaster haploid cell line (1182-4), not previously used for transfection studies, is capable of taking up and expressing DNA without the use of a facilitating agent such as calcium phosphate. Furthermore expression from a variety of Drosophila promoters such as copia, heatshock and rudimentary as well as a mammalian promoter RSV-LTR, show between 20 and over 100 times more activity in 1182-4 cells than in D.hydei DH33 or D.melanogaster S3, or D1 cell lines. This cell line should prove to be particularly useful for the analysis of weak promoters and heterologous transcription factors.