Here’s a recent paper in PNAS that looks at the use of viral 5′ and 3′ UTRs to enhance gene expression from UAS trangenes. They show that using particular viral and other heterospecific UTRs can seriously increase protein abundance, and thus give stronger phenotypes.
These tricks are worth considering if you are making UAS or Lex constructs for ectopic geen expression. More immediately, the enhanced UAS-shi[ts] construct they made can be useful for some of your neuronal silencing experiments.
Quote: “In this report, we demonstrate that sequences derived from the 5′-UTR and 3′-UTR of viral mRNAs, as well as from the abundantly expressed lobster tropomyosin gene (35), are able to function in Drosophila to enhance protein production. By using 5′- and 3′-UTR elements in combination, increases of >20-fold have been achieved, allowing single transgenes to achieve protein expression levels that previously required multiple transgenes, thereby greatly facilitating genetic strain construction. We also show that the 3′-UTR from the Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus (AcNPV) p10 gene functions efficiently in the female germline. “