Heidt Analeah B, Black Brian L
Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143-0130, USA.
Genesis. 2005 May;42(1):28-32. doi: 10.1002/gene.20123.
Genes expressed in skeletal muscle are often required in other tissues. This is particularly the case for cardiac and smooth muscle, both contractile tissues that share numerous characteristics with skeletal muscle, such that targeted inactivation can lead to embryonic lethality prior to a requirement for gene function in skeletal muscle. Thus, it is essential that conditional inactivation approaches are developed to disrupt genes specifically in skeletal muscle. In this report, we describe a transgenic mouse that expresses Cre recombinase under the control of a skeletal muscle-specific promoter from the mef2c gene. Cre expression in this transgenic line is completely restricted to skeletal muscle from early in development and is present in all skeletal muscles, including those of epaxial and hypaxial origins and in fast and slow fibers. This early skeletal muscle-specific Cre line will be a useful tool to define the function of genes specifically in skeletal muscle.
在骨骼肌中表达的基因在其他组织中也常常是必需的。心脏和平滑肌尤其如此，这两种收缩组织与骨骼肌有许多共同特征，以至于靶向失活可能导致在骨骼肌对基因功能有需求之前就出现胚胎致死性。因此，开发条件性失活方法以特异性地破坏骨骼肌中的基因至关重要。在本报告中，我们描述了一种转基因小鼠，其在来自mef2c基因的骨骼肌特异性启动子的控制下表达Cre重组酶。在这个转基因品系中，Cre表达从发育早期就完全局限于骨骼肌，并且存在于所有骨骼肌中，包括轴上和轴下起源的骨骼肌以及快肌纤维和慢肌纤维。这种早期骨骼肌特异性Cre品系将成为一个有用的工具，用于明确基因在骨骼肌中的特定功能。
