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Tractable Cre-lox system for stochastic alteration of genes in mice

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Abstract

We developed a cell division–activated Cre-lox system for stochastic recombination of loxP-flanked loci in mice. Cre activation by frameshift reversion is modulated by DNA mismatch-repair status and occurs in individual cells surrounded by normal tissue, mimicking spontaneous cancer-causing mutations. This system should be particularly useful for delineating pathways of neoplasia, and determining the developmental and aging consequences of specific gene alterations.

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Figure 1: Generation and characterization of Pms2cre mice.
Figure 2: Activation of K-ras results in larger regions of β-galactosidase staining.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Wong, N. Erdeniz, J. Johnson, O. Reilly and K. MacDonald for critically reading the manuscript. This work was supported by US National Institutes of Health grants R37 GM32741 to R.M.L. and 2 RO1 CA 80077 to D.S.

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Correspondence to R Michael Liskay.

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Miller, A., Dudley, S., Tsao, JL. et al. Tractable Cre-lox system for stochastic alteration of genes in mice. Nat Methods 5, 227–229 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1183

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