New Lab Preprint! A new method for high-throughput transgenesis

In this manuscript we present Transgenic Arrays Resulting in Diversity of Integrated Sequences (TARDIS), a simple yet powerful approach to large-scale transgenesis that overcomes typical limitations encountered in multicellular systems. TARDIS splits the transgenesis process into a two-step process: creation of individuals carrying experimentally introduced sequence libraries, followed by inducible extraction and integration of individual sequences/library components from the larger library cassette into engineered genomic sites. Thus, transformation of a single individual, followed by lineage expansion and functional transgenesis, gives rise to thousands of genetically unique transgenic individuals. We demonstrate the power of this system using engineered, split selectable TARDIS sites in Caenorhabditis elegans to generate (1) a large set of individually barcoded lineages and (2) transcriptional reporter lines from pre-defined promoter libraries. We find that this approach increases transformation yields up to ~1000-fold over current single-step methods. While we demonstrate the utility of TARDIS using C. elegans, the process is adaptable to any system where experimentally generated genomic loci landing pads and diverse, heritable DNA elements can be generated.