Cell-specific ecdysone-inducible expression of FLP recombinase in mammalian cells

The ability of site-specific recombinases, like FLP and Cre, to catalyze alterations in genomic DNA is well established, whereas their application to genetic engineering strategies has been restricted because of the inability to temporally regulate their expression and subsequent recombination events in specific populations of cells. We describe a regulatory system for ecdysone-controlled expression of FLP recombinase. Furthermore, we demonstrate that ecdysone-induced, FLP-mediated site-specific recombination events can be targeted to specific cells. This system can be applied to cell-lineage studies as well as to the design of gene-therapy strategies, particularly in stem cells.