Archive for the ‘publication’ Category
Saturday, August 21st, 2010
KO rats obtained by homologous recombination in rat ES cells
One year ago, the first KO rats were reported by Geurts et al. (Science, 2009, 325:433) , using the Zn-finger nucleases technology. Half a year earlier, several laboratories had reported the pionner isolation of true rat embryonic stems (ES) cells, including a manuscript published by Li et al. (Cell, 2008, 135: 1299-1310), from Qi-Long Ying’s lab. Last week, this laboratory reported the generation of the first knockout rats obtained by homologous recombination in rat ES cells [Tong et al. (Nature, 2010, August 11)], thereby illustrating the power of those rat ES cells for the inactivation of a most popular locus, the P53 gene. This report demonstrates that the rat genome is amenable to the same type of genetic modifications as the mouse genome, using equivalent procedures.
Tags: rat ES cells, rat KO
Posted in ES cells, general, information, knock-outs, knockout, publication, rat, transgenic research | No Comments »
Friday, July 16th, 2010
ES cells set for aggregation with a mouse morula
Marina Gertsenstein (member of ISTT) and her colleagues, from the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital and the Toronto Centre for Phenogenomics, in Toronto (ON, Canada), have recently published a scientific article in PLoS ONE describing the efficient generation of mouse chimeras with C57BL/6N ES cells by aggregation with standard albino outbred ICR morulas. As detailed in this work, the use of chemically-defined ES cell culture medium (2i) appears to be crucial for the success of the experiment. This is an interesting development that can help the biomedical research community for the easy and rapid generation of C57BL/6N -derived chimeras at a reduced cost. It also complements the toolbox by which chimeras can be obtained with the popular C57BL/6N ES cells, used in the large-scale international consortiums (i.e. IKMC) aiming to generate systematic knock-outs of all genes in the mouse genome.
Tags: chimeras, mouse ES cells, publication
Posted in ES cells, coat color, gene trap, general, genes, information, knock-outs, pigmentation, publication, transgenic research, web site | No Comments »
Thursday, June 17th, 2010
The colors of mice
A new book on genetics of mouse pigmentation has been just published, entitled ”The colors of mice: a model genetic network” by M. Lynn Lamoreux, Véronique Delmas, Lionel Larue and Dorothy C. Bennett (Wiley, 2010). According to publisher’s page, this new book “… showcases a blend of new technologies and new insights in the field of pigmentary genetics of mice, with comparative information on other animals…”
Tags: book, coat color, pigment, transgenic mice
Posted in coat color, general, genes, information, pigmentation, publication, web site | No Comments »
Monday, May 31st, 2010
Genetic polymorphisms among C57BL/6 mouse inbred strains
A manuscript entitled “Genetic polymorphisms among C57BL/6 mouse inbred strains” has been just published by Esther Zurita, Mónica Chagoyen, Marta Cantero, Rosario Alonso, Anna González-Neira, Alejandro López-Jiménez, José Antonio López-Moreno, Carlisle P. Landel, Javier Benítez, Florencio Pazos and Lluís Montoliu in Transgenic Research. The Illumina® Mouse Medium Density Linkage Mapping panel, with 1,449 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), was used to genotype individuals from ten C57BL/6-related strains: C57BL/6JArc, C57BL/6J from The Jackson Lab, C57BL/6J from Crl, C57BL6/JRccHsd, C57BL/6JOlaHsd, C57BL/6JBomTac, B6(Cg)-Tyr (<c-2j>)/J, C57BL/6NCrl, C57BL/6NHsd and C57BL/6NTac. Twelve SNPs were found informative to discriminate between the “/N” and “/J” C57BL/6 mouse substrains considered. These results will be instrumental for the correct genetic monitoring and appropriate mouse colony handling of different transgenic and knockout mice produced in distinct C57BL/6 inbred substrains. The SNP raw data are also available from the Mouse Phenome Database at Jackson Laboratory.
Tags: C57BL/6 mice, genetic background, mouse inbred strain, polymorphisms, SNP
Posted in ES cells, TT meeting, coat color, database, general, genes, information, knockout, meetings, mouse strains, pigmentation, publication, transgenic, transgenic research, web site | No Comments »
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
TT2010 meeting report published in Transgenic Research
The scientific report corresponding to the 9th Transgenic Technology meeting (TT2010), recently held in Berlin, Germany, at the MDC, in March 22-24, 2010 has been published, as online first article (DOI 10.1007/s11248-010-9397-2, published online, 24 April 2010), in the scientific journal Transgenic Research, associated to ISTT. This meeting report has been prepared by Thom Saunders (Univ. Michigan, Ann Harbor, MI, USA) and Peter Sobieszczuk (Univ. Miami, FL, USA). Thom and Peter will be the organizers of the next 10th Transgenic Technology meeting (TT2011), to be held in Miami, Florida, on October 24-26, 2011.
Transgenic Research
Tags: Meeting report, TT2010 report
Posted in ISTT Members, Meeting report, TT meeting, general, information, publication, transgenic, transgenic research, web site | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Program and abstracts of the TT2010 meeting published in Transgenic Research
The program and abstracts of the forthcoming 9th Transgenic Technology meeting (TT2010), to be held in Berlin, at the MDC, on March 22-24, 2010, have been just published in the April issue (19:2) of the scientific journal Transgenic Research, associated to the International Society for Transgenic Technologies (ISTT). All participants registered to attend the TT2010 meeting will receive a complimentary copy of this issue of the journal in Berlin. All ISTT members are entitled for the free access to browse and download this and other articles published in Transgenic Research through the privileged entry point available from within the members-only section of the ISTT web site.
Tags: abstracts, journal, program, transgenic research, TT2010 Meeting
Posted in ISTT Members, TT meeting, general, information, publication, transgenic research, web site | No Comments »
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
Scientific Journal: Transgenic Research, associated with ISTT
Transgenic Research, the scientific journal published by Springer and associated with the International Society for Transgenic Technologies (ISTT) has recently published several reports of events where ISTT has been present as co-sponsor, supporting the corresponding conferences. The two most recent reports published include that of 5th Workshop on Innovative Mouse Models (IMM2009) held in Leiden (The Netherlands), written by Marian van Roon, and the corresponding report of the VI Transgenic Animal Research Conference (UC Davis) held in Tahoe (CA, USA), prepared by Louis-Marie Houdebine. Both reports are accessible as “online first articles available” in the journal web site. ISTT Members benefit from access to full online contents of all articles published in Transgenic Research, as one of the rights associated with ISTT Membership.
Tags: Meeting report, transgenic research
Posted in ISTT, ISTT Members, Meeting report, general, information, meetings, publication, transgenic research, web site | No Comments »
Friday, July 24th, 2009
KnockOut Rats Obtained by ZFN technology
Science magazine publishes tody a report by Geurts et al. describing the first successful attempt to produce gene targeted knockout rats through the use of Zinc Finger Nuclease technology, developed by Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. This strategy does not require the use of embryonic stem (ES) cells. Targeted mutations are induced by standard microinjection of DNA and RNA molecules into 1-cell rat embryos. This milestone has been achieved by a collaborative effort of academic and industrial scientists coordinated by the biotechnology company Open Monoclonal Technology, Inc. The team includes two members of ISTT, Ignacio Anegon and Séverine Ménoret, from the Transgenic Rats Common Facility at INSERM, UMR 643, CHU, Nantes, Université de Nantes, France. Ignacio Anegon has confirmed his participation, as invited speaker, at the forthcoming TT2010 meeting, to be held in Berlin, March 22-24, 2010.
In this work, OMT scientists and their collaborators have made use of zinc finger nuclease strategies to target an integrated reporter and two endogenous rat genes, Immunoglobulin M (IgM) and Rab38. The mutations are induced at high frequency (animals carry 25 to 100% disruption at the target locus) by standard microinjection of DNA or RNA molecules encoding specific Zinc Finger Nucleases. These mutations are faithfully and efficiently transmitted through the germline. Quoting the authors: “…Our data demonstrate the feasibility of targeted gene disruption in multiple rat strains within 4 months time, paving the way to a humanized monoclonal antibody platform and additional human disease models.”
Tags: first rat knockouts
Posted in general, information, knockout, publication, rat, transgenic research, web site | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
Nantes meeting on Transgenic Animals
On June 8 2009 was held in Nantes, France, the international meeting “Transgenesis ; recent technical developments and applications”. This meeting is the second one of its kind to be organized by the Transgenic Rats Nantes facility from the INSERM UMR 643 and Biogenouest. The meeting was supported by several academic institutions, as well as private companies. The meeting received support and co-sponsorship from the International Society for Transgenic Technology (ISTT). Around 100 participants, from France but also in significant proportion from different European countries and Canada, attended the meeting and registration prices were kept as low as possible to facilitate the participation of students.
The meeting aimed to provide an update on recent technical developments in the generation of transgenic animals and in some of their applications. It was intended for Master, PhD and medical students with a background in molecular biology and genetics as an introduction to future work in these rapidly developing areas of research. It was also intended for post-docs and scientists already working in certain of these fields and who are interested in expanding their knowledge on the potential applications of these new techniques to their models. Here, you can download the corresponding meeting report.
Tags: Meeting report, Nantes meeting, Transgenesis
Posted in ISTT, Meeting report, facility, general, information, knockout, publication, rat, transgenic research, web site | No Comments »
Friday, June 12th, 2009
A genetically-modified mouse generated for research purposes (LM)
Nature published yesterday an interesting Editorial promoting the concept of sharing and archiving mouse models that are constantly generated world wide, as a way to adequately trigger our progress in science more efficiently, to avoid repeated experiments and duplication of efforts, and to allow different laboratories to use the same research tools and animal models.
These ideas were discussed in a recent meeting on “Data Sharing in Mouse Functional Genomics“, held in Rome in May 20-22, 2009, within the European Project CASIMIR, a coordination action of the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission, that focus on co-ordination and integration of databases set up in support of FP5 and FP6 projects containing experimental data, including sequences, and material resources such as biological collections, relevant to the use of the mouse as a model organism for human disease.
Archiving of genetically-modified and, in general, mutant mice can be done using any of the existing international platforms, such as: EMMA, The Jackson Laboratory, MMRRC, MMHCC, Riken-RBRC, Riken-CARD, CMC, CMMR, Australian Phenomics Network, etc…. all coordinated and available through the Federation of International Mouse Resources (FIMRE) and with all their mouse repository contents searchable through the International Mouse Strain Resource (IMSR).
In order to promote sharing and archiving of all new mice that are produced the Editorial of Nature recommends that “Journals should now require researchers to place their mice in repositories as a condition of publication. And funding agencies should require repository plans to be included in all grant applications that are likely to generate new mouse strains. Part of the grant money should be reserved for this task and final reports or evaluations of the grants should refer to the repository used. The repositories themselves should help the journals and funding agencies by finding a way to generate a unique accession number for each mouse strain.”
Tags: archiving, cryopreservation, repositories
Posted in ES cells, cryopreservation, facility, general, information, knockout, publication, service, transgenic, web site | No Comments »