Gene trapping is a high-throughput approach that is used to introduce insertional mutations across the genome in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells. In addition to generating standard loss-of-function alleles, newer gene trap vectors offer a variety of post-insertional modification strategies for the generation of other experimental alleles.

The International Gene Trap Consortium (IGTC) represents all publicly available gene trap cell lines, which are available on a non-collaborative basis for nominal handling fees. Researchers can search and browse the IGTC database for cell lines of interest using accession numbers or IDs, keywords, sequence data, tissue expression profiles and biological pathways.