Fig. 3: Recombination effectively induces large-range gene expression variation of a fluorescent reporter.

Comparison of normalized fluorescence between a control group (gray) and a Cre-expressing group (yellow), carrying (a). the 5’ GEM (N = 210) in combination with CYC1 terminator, (b). the 3’ GEM (N = 225) in combination with TPI1 promoter or (c). a combination of the 5’ and 3’ GEM constructs (N = 180). The legend of the GEM modules is shown at the bottom right of the figure. Dots represent normalized fluorescence of separately induced clones randomly selected from six independently induced populations after plating. Statistics by Fligner-Killeen test with p = 7.20e-07 (UPE), 2.20e-16 (terminator) and 2.20e-16 (combination). Orange dots indicate clones which were further analyzed and sequenced (23 per construct), shown in (d). 5’ GEM, (e). 3’ GEM, and (f). Combination of 5’ and 3’ GEM. Dots here represent the average of 3 biological repeats, error bars show the standard deviation. The sequences of the recombined GEM layouts are depicted on the right of each graph, connected to the corresponding dots with gray lines. g The frequency of no recombination, deletions, inversions, translocation events or duplications as calculated from the data shown in (d–f), obtained from sequences of single colonies after induction. The type of recombination event which occurred for each LoxPsym-flanked element (GEM-block) was counted for each setup and the distribution of fractions is shown by boxplots. The center line, box limits, dots and whiskers of the boxplots indicate the median, first and third quartiles, outliers and 1.5 x interquartile range, respectively. Source data for this figure are provided as a Source Data file.