CRISPR-Based Transcriptional Activation in Drosophila

Overexpression is one of the classical approaches to study pleiotropic functions of genes of interest. To achieve overexpression, we often increase the transcription by introducing genes on exogenous vectors or by using the CRISPR/dCas9-based transcriptional activation system. To date, the most efficient CRISPR/dCas9-based transcriptional activator is the Synergistic Activation Mediator (SAM) system whereby three different transcriptional activation domains are directly fused to dCas9 and MS2 phage Coat Protein (MCP), respectively, and the system in Drosophila is named flySAM. Here we describe the effective and convenient transcriptional activation system, flySAM, starting from vector construction, microinjection, and transgenic fly selection to the phenotypic analysis.