Department of Biochemistry, College of Life Science and Biotechnology, Laboratory Animal Research Center, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea.
BMB Rep. 2012 Dec;45(12):686-92. doi: 10.5483/bmbrep.2012.45.12.242.
Phenotypic analysis of gene-specific knockout (KO) mice has revolutionized our understanding of in vivo gene functions. As the use of mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells is inevitable for conventional gene targeting, the generation of knockout mice remains a very time-consuming and expensive process. To accelerate the large-scale production and phenotype analyses of KO mice, international efforts have organized global consortia such as the International Knockout Mouse Consortium (IKMC) and International Mouse Phenotype Consortium (IMPC), and they are persistently expanding the KO mouse catalogue that is publicly available for the researches studying specific genes of interests in vivo. However, new technologies, adopting zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs) or Transcription Activator-Like Effector (TALE) Nucleases (TALENs) to edit the mouse genome, are now emerging as valuable and effective shortcuts alternative for the conventional gene targeting using ES cells. Here, we introduce the recent achievement of IKMC, and evaluate the significance of ZFN/TALEN technology in mouse genetics.
基因特异性敲除（KO）小鼠的表型分析极大地推动了我们对体内基因功能的认识。由于传统的基因靶向需要使用小鼠胚胎干细胞（ES 细胞），因此敲除小鼠的产生仍然是一个非常耗时和昂贵的过程。为了加速 KO 小鼠的大规模生产和表型分析，国际上的努力组织了全球联盟，如国际敲除小鼠联盟（IKMC）和国际小鼠表型联盟（IMPC），它们不断扩大 KO 小鼠目录，供研究人员在体内研究特定基因的兴趣。然而，新技术，采用锌指核酸酶（ZFNs）或转录激活因子样效应物（TALE）核酸酶（TALENs）来编辑小鼠基因组，现在作为使用 ES 细胞进行传统基因靶向的有价值和有效的替代方法出现了。在这里，我们介绍了 IKMC 的最新成果，并评估了 ZFN/TALEN 技术在小鼠遗传学中的意义。
