Department of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
Development. 2012 Nov;139(21):3969-72. doi: 10.1242/dev.086025. Epub 2012 Sep 19.
In many invertebrate and vertebrate species, cell fates are assigned through the cellular inheritance of differentially localized maternal determinants. Whether mammalian embryogenesis is also regulated by deterministic mechanisms is highly controversial. The caudal domain transcription factor CDX2 has been reported to act as a maternal determinant regulating cell fate decisions in mouse development. However, this finding is contentious because of reports that maternal Cdx2 is not essential for development. Notably, all of the previously published studies of maternal Cdx2 relied on injected RNA interference constructs, which could introduce experimental variation. Only deletion of the maternal gene can unambiguously resolve its requirement in mouse development. Here, we genetically ablated maternal Cdx2 using a Cre/lox strategy, and we definitively establish that maternal Cdx2 is not essential for mouse development.
在许多无脊椎动物和脊椎动物物种中，细胞命运是通过差异定位的母体决定因素的细胞遗传来分配的。哺乳动物胚胎发生是否也受确定性机制调节是一个高度争议的问题。尾部域转录因子 CDX2 已被报道作为一种母体决定因素，调节小鼠发育中的细胞命运决定。然而，由于有报道称母体 Cdx2 对发育不是必需的，这一发现存在争议。值得注意的是，以前所有关于母体 Cdx2 的研究都依赖于注射 RNA 干扰构建体，这可能会引入实验变异。只有删除母体基因才能明确确定其在小鼠发育中的需求。在这里，我们使用 Cre/lox 策略从遗传上剔除了母体 Cdx2，并且明确确定母体 Cdx2 对小鼠发育不是必需的。
