Germ line activation of the Tie2 and SMMHC promoters causes noncell-specific deletion of floxed alleles. Physiol Genomics 2008 Sep 17;35(1):1-4
Date
07/10/2008Pubmed ID
18612081Pubmed Central ID
PMC2574738DOI
10.1152/physiolgenomics.90284.2008Scopus ID
2-s2.0-56149117324 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 51 CitationsAbstract
Tissue-specific knockouts generated through Cre-loxP recombination have become an important tool to manipulate the mouse genome. Normally, two successive rounds of breeding are performed to generate mice carrying two floxed target-gene alleles and a transgene expressing Cre-recombinase tissue-specifically. We show herein that two promoters commonly used to generate endothelium-specific (Tie2) and smooth muscle-specific [smooth muscle myosin heavy chain (Smmhc)] knockout mice exhibit activity in the female and male germ lines, respectively. This can result in the inheritance of a null allele in the second generation that is not tissue specific. Careful experimental design is required therefore to ensure that tissue-specific knockouts are indeed tissue specific and that appropriate controls are used to compare strains.
Author List
de Lange WJ, Halabi CM, Beyer AM, Sigmund CDAuthors
Andreas M. Beyer PhD Associate Professor in the Medicine department at Medical College of WisconsinCurt Sigmund PhD Chair, Professor in the Physiology department at Medical College of Wisconsin
MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AllelesAnimals
Female
Germ Cells
Integrases
Male
Mice
Mice, Knockout
Mice, Transgenic
Myosin Heavy Chains
Promoter Regions, Genetic
Receptor, TIE-2
Sequence Deletion
Transgenes
