Figure 1. Sleeping Beauty (SB)-mediated DNA transposition.

The SB transposase (red ovals) expressed by a transiently transfected plasmid binds to the inverted repeat sequences (in gray) flanking the gene of interest (GOI) and catalyzes the cut-and-paste transposition of the GOI into the genome of the target cell (tangled lines) at thymine and adenine dinucleotide base pairs. Transposon integration and loss of the plasmid expressing SB transposase results in stable gene expression. The triangles denote promoter sequences, which often vary between the transposase and the GOI.