The REMOTE-control system: a system for reversible and tunable control of endogenous gene expression in mice

We report here a robust, tunable, and reversible transcription control system for endogenous genes. The REMOTE-control system (Reversible Manipulation of Transcription at Endogenous loci) employs enhanced lac repression and tet activation systems. With this approach, we show in mouse embryonic stem cells that endogenous Dnmt1 gene transcription could be up- or downregulated in a tunable, inducible, and reversible manner across nearly two orders of magnitude. Transcriptional repression of Dnmt1 by REMOTE-control was potent enough to cause embryonic lethality in mice, reminiscent of a genetic knockout of Dnmt1 and could substantially suppress intestinal polyp formation when applied to an ApcMin model. Binding by the enhanced lac repressor was sufficiently tight to allow strong attenuation of transcriptional elongation, even at operators located many kilobases downstream of the transcription start site and to produce invariably tight repression of all of the strong viral/mammalian promoters tested. Our approach of targeting tet transcriptional activators to the endogenous Dnmt1 promoter resulted in robust upregulation of this highly expressed housekeeping gene. Our system provides exquisite control of the level, timing, and cell-type specificity of endogenous gene expression, and the potency and versatility of the system will enable high resolution in vivo functional analyses.