PiggyBac Transposon for Mammalian Applications

As a tool of genetic engineering,DNA transposons have been widely used for transgenesis and insertional mutagenesis in various organisms.Till now,transposons active in mammalian include: 1) hAT-like Tol2;2),two Tc1-like transposons,Sleeping Beauty(SB) and Frog Prince(FP);3) PiggyBac family.Among those transposons,the moth-derived transposon piggybac appears to be the most promising genetic tool due to its higher efficient transposition and higher cargo capacity.Therefore,it can be used for transgenesis,discovery of cancer gene and tumor suppressor gene,and gene therapy.The traceless excision transposition property of the PB transposon can be used to generate transgene-free iPS cells while maintaining an unaltered genome.In this review we will discuss the application and the future of PB transposon in mammalian.