Inducible inhibition of gene function with photomorpholinos

Abstract

Photoactivatable morpholinos (MO) allow specific temporal and spatial inhibition of gene function, which is not possible with conventional morpholino or genetic global gene knock-out approaches. Here, we describe an application of commercially available photoactivatable MO technology for specific gene inhibition in a zebrafish embryonic model and discuss the required controls related to the specificity and efficacy of this method. A similar approach should be also applicable to other model organisms.