Data from: A Flippase-mediated GAL80/GAL4 intersectional resource for dissecting appendage development in Drosophila

Drosophila imaginal discs provide an ideal model to study processes
important for cell signaling and cell specification, tissue
differentiation, and cell competition during development. One challenge to
understanding genetic control of cellular processes and cell interactions
is the difficulty in effectively targeting a defined subset of cells in
developing tissues in gene manipulation experiments. A recently developed
Flippase-induced intersectional GAL80/GAL4 repression method incorporates
several gene manipulation technologies in Drosophila to enable such
fine-scale dissection in neural tissues. In particular, this approach
brings together existing GAL4 transgenes, newly developed enhancer-trap
flippase transgenes, and GAL80 transgenes flanked by Flippase recognition
target sites. The combination of these tools enables gene
activation/repression in particular subsets of cells within a GAL4
expression pattern. Here, we expand the utility of a large collection of
these enhancer-trap flippase transgenic insertion lines by characterizing
their expression patterns in third larval instar imaginal discs. We
screened 521 different enhancer-trap flippase lines and identified 28 that
are expressed in imaginal tissues, including two transgenes that show
sex-specific expression patterns. Using a line that expresses Flippase in
the wing imaginal disc, we demonstrate the utility of this intersectional
approach for studying development by knocking down gene expression of a
key member of the planar cell polarity pathway. The results of our
experiments show that these enhancer-trap flippase lines enable fine-scale
manipulation in imaginal discs.