Flytrap is a web-enabled relational database of transposable element insertions in Drosophila melanogaster. A green fluorescent protein (GFP) artificial exon carried by a transposable P-element is mobilized and inserted into a host gene intron creating a GFP fusion protein. The sequence of the tagged gene is determined by sequencing inverse-PCR products derived from genomic DNA. Flytrap contains two principle data types: micrographs of protein localization and a cellular component ontology, based on rules derived from the Gene Ontology consortium (http://www.geneontology.org), describing protein localization. Flytrap also has links to gene information contained in Flybase (http:// flybase.bio.indiana.edu). The system is designed to accept submissions of micrographs and descriptions from any type of tissue (e.g. wing imaginal disk, ovary) and at any stage of development. Insertion lines can be searched using a number of queries, including Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project (BDGP) numbers and protein localization. In addition, Flytrap provides online order forms linked to each insertion line so that users may request any line generated from this project. Flytrap may be accessed from the homepage at http://flytrap.med. yale.edu.

The use of fluorescent protein tags has had a huge impact on cell biological studies in virtually every experimental system. Incorporation of coding sequence for fluorescent proteins such as green fluorescent protein (GFP) into genes at their endogenous chromosomal position is especially useful for generating GFP-fusion proteins that provide accurate cellular and subcellular expression data. We tested modifications of a transposon-based protein trap screening procedure in Drosophila to optimize the rate of recovering useful protein traps and their analysis. Transposons carrying the GFP-coding sequence flanked by splice acceptor and donor sequences were mobilized, and new insertions that resulted in production of GFP were captured using an automated embryo sorter. Individual stocks were established, GFP expression was analyzed during oogenesis, and insertion sites were determined by sequencing genomic DNA flanking the insertions. The resulting collection includes lines with protein traps in which GFP was spliced into mRNAs and embedded within endogenous proteins or enhancer traps in which GFP expression depended on splicing into transposon-derived RNA. We report a total of 335 genes associated with protein or enhancer traps and a web-accessible database for viewing molecular information and expression data for these genes. A S a model organism, perhaps the most important advantage of Drosophila is the extensive range of very sophisticated genetic tools available. Central among these are transposons, including P elements and piggyBac (PBac) elements, which can be used to create easily mapped insertion mutations and to analyze gene expression with a variety of reporter molecules. P elements are naturally occurring Drosophila transposable elements that were first modified to provide vectors for efficient DNA-mediated gene transfer in Drosophila (Rubin and Spradling 1982) and then to create collections of random, single-element insertions in the genome (Robertson et al. 1988;Cooley et al. 1989;Spradling et al. 1995Spradling et al. , 1999Bellen et al. 2004). Although very useful for mutagenesis, P elements also have limitations including preference for the 59 region of genes (O'Hare and Rubin 1983;Tsubota et al. 1985), bias toward particular sequence motifs (O'Hare and Rubin 1983), and ''hot spots'' that have been hit at a high frequency (Spradling et al. 1999).The more recent use of transposons based on the Lepidopteran PBac element has expanded the number of genes disrupted by single transposon insertions (Horn et al. 2003;Bellen et al. 2004;Bonin and Mann 2004;Thibault et al. 2004). First introduced into the Drosophila melanogaster germline by Handler and Harrell (1999), the PBac elements were shown to transpose and insert at TTAA sequences. Like the P element, PBac contains a single open reading frame encoding transposase and is bounded by short terminal inverted repeats. PBac elements have been demonstrated to insert into new genes that have not previously been hit using P-element techniques.Engineered tr...

Sympathetic ophthalmia warrants prompt evaluation and treatment to maintain a favorable visual outcome. Ocular surgeries including vitreoretinal surgery and cyclodestructive procedures have been noted to be risk factors for the development of sympathetic ophthalmia. With current medical management including corticosteroids and immunomodulators visual prognosis is relatively good.

The purpose of this review is to comprehensively examine the various therapeutic agents available to treat autoimmune eye disease, their indications, clinical safety and recent developments. The stepladder approach is reviewed, including corticosteroid administration of various forms, classic immunomodulators, and newer biologic response modifiers. The authors present that corticosteroid monotherapy is almost never curative and carries significant side effects, while immunomodulatory therapy, when used appropriately as way to induce steroid-free remission, carries far less risk of causing long-term complications and provides greater potential of altering the immune system to induce a durable remission.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s40123-014-0023-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.