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Reporter Genes

Reporter Genes

Reporter genes are a type of protein-coding gene that are often tagged to a gene of interest. Once inside a target cell, reporter genes usually produce visually identifiable characteristics like fluorescence and luminescence when expressed along with the gene of interest. Thus, reporter genes “report” the presence or absence of genes of interest in an organism, determine the gene expression pattern, or track the physical location of a DNA segment or protein in the cell.

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Combinatorial gene control is the synergistic action of several transcriptional factors to regulate the expression of a single gene. The absence of one or more of these factors may lead to a significant difference in the level of gene expression or repression.
The expression of more than 30,000 genes is controlled by approximately 2000-3000 transcription factors. This is possible because a single transcription factor can recognize more than one regulatory sequence. The specificity in gene...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Sep 6, 2025

Reliably Engineering and Controlling Stable Optogenetic Gene Circuits in Mammalian Cells

Reliably Engineering and Controlling Stable Optogenetic Gene Circuits in Mammalian Cells

Published on: July 6, 2021

Optogenetics for transcriptional programming and genetic engineering.

Tien-Hung Lan¹, Lian He¹, Yun Huang²

¹Center for Translational Cancer Research, Institute of Biosciences and Technology, Texas A&M University, Houston, TX 77030, USA.

Trends in Genetics : TIG

|June 23, 2022

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Opal-free optogenetics uses genetically encoded modules to precisely control cellular functions like gene transcription and genome editing with light. This rapidly advancing field offers new tools for synthetic biology and genetics research.

Keywords:

CRISPR-Cas9 gene expression genome editing nanoparticle optogenetics synthetic biology

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Last Updated: Sep 6, 2025

Reliably Engineering and Controlling Stable Optogenetic Gene Circuits in Mammalian Cells

Reliably Engineering and Controlling Stable Optogenetic Gene Circuits in Mammalian Cells

Published on: July 6, 2021

Rapid Synthesis and Screening of Chemically Activated Transcription Factors with GFP-based Reporters

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An Optogenetic Method to Control and Analyze Gene Expression Patterns in Cell-to-cell Interactions

An Optogenetic Method to Control and Analyze Gene Expression Patterns in Cell-to-cell Interactions

Published on: March 22, 2018

Area of Science:

Genetics
Biophotonics
Synthetic Biology

Background:

Optogenetics enables noninvasive control of biological processes using light.
Existing optogenetic tools often rely on opsins.
Cellular information flow is governed by protein machineries central to the central dogma.

Purpose of the Study:

To present modular strategies for optogenetic engineering.
To highlight advances in opsin-free optogenetics.
To discuss applications in programming transcriptional outputs and manipulating the mammalian genome, epigenome, and epitranscriptome.

Main Methods:

Harnessing genetically encoded non-opsin photosensory modules.
Utilizing photons across a wide spectral range (200-1000 nm).
Engineering protein machineries to modulate cellular information flow.

Main Results:

Demonstrated modular strategies for optogenetic engineering.
Showcased broad applications of opsin-free optogenetics.
Enabled precise manipulation of mammalian genome, epigenome, and epitranscriptome.

Conclusions:

Opsin-free optogenetics provides powerful tools for precise control of biological processes.
This field is rapidly evolving to meet demands in synthetic biology and genetics.
Future trends indicate continued expansion of opsin-free optogenetic applications.