Abstract
Transgene insertion is instrumental to identifying genes with defined physiological functions. In this paper, we show that mice homozygous for either TM1 or TM2, two mutant alleles with distinct transgene insertions, exhibited embryo lethality, suggesting that these two alleles play essential roles in embryogenesis. Interestingly, although hemizygous TM1 or TM2 alone did not have obvious alteration in thymocyte development, together, they exhibited a compound effect on thymocyte development, blocking the development from CD4 and CD8 double-negative to double-positive stage of T cells. TM1 and TM2 mutations were mapped to chromosome regions 7E-F1 and 11B5-C, respectively, where we could not identify any known gene that was implicated in a similar function. Thus, TM1 and TM2 represent two novel alleles that define a genetic trait controlling thymocyte development.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the members of Hua Gu’s laboratory for helpful discussion. This work was supported by NIH intramural research program and by the Irene Diamond Professorship to Hua Gu.
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Supplementary Fig. 2
Flow cytometric analysis of thymocyte development in TM1 ROSA(26)YFP and EIIa-Cre TM2 double transgenic mice. Shown are the FACS profiles of anti-CD4 and CD8 double staining of total thymocytes from a TM1, TM1 ROSA(26)YFP, or b TM2, and EIIa-Cre TM2 mice. YFP+ cells in TM1 ROSA(26)YFP thymocytes (top panel in a) indicate the frequencies of each thymocyte subsets with Cre-mediated recombination (JPG 91 kb).
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Huang, F., Naramura, M., Papaioannou, V.E. et al. TM1 and TM2: two mutant alleles that constitute a genetic trait controlling thymocyte development. Immunogenetics 59, 473–477 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-007-0207-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-007-0207-9