A reliable way of obtaining stable inducible clones

Inducible gene expression systems provide a powerful tool for the analysis of gene product functions. The 'Tetracycline (Tc) expression system' has been widely and successfully used in many instances. However, this system remains somewhat tedious to use due to: (i) the establishment of a primary cell line constitutively and stably expressing the Tc-regulated transactivator and (ii) the obtention of a secondary line expressing the gene of interest in a Tc-dependent manner. In order to facilitate these two critical steps, we devised an efficient and molecular biology-free strategy allowing the successful selection of clones expressing any cDNA under tight regulation.