Genetic transformation of the housefly Musca domestica with the lepidopteran derived transposon piggyBac

The piggyBac transposable element was successfully used for stable genetic transformation of the housefly Musca domestica, The construct contains the EGFP marker under the control of Pax-6 binding sites, which can drive eye-s pecific expression in insect species as distantly related as Drosophila mel anogaster and Tribolium castaneum [Berghammer, A.J., Klingler, M, and Wimme r, E.A, (1999) Nature 402: 370-371], We obtained seven independent integrat ion events among 41 fertile G(o) Musca flies, Most of the transformed lines contained two or more chromosomal insertions of the EGFP marker which were stably inherited over more than 15 generations. piggyBac-mediated transpos ition was verified by Identifying the characteristic TTAA duplication at th e insertion sites, This first report of stable transmission of a genetic ma rker in Muses confirms the use of this vector-marker system for effective g ene transfer in a broad range of insect species.