Nature Genetics
22, 375 - 378 (1999)
doi:10.1038/11949
Engineering a mouse balancer chromosomeBinhai Zheng1, Marijke Sage1, Wei-Wen Cai1, Debrah M. Thompson1, 2, Beril C. Tavsanli3, Yin-Chai Cheah1
& Allan Bradley1, 2, 31
Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas 77030, USA. 2
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas 77030, USA. 3
Developmental Biology Program, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.
Correspondence should be addressed to Allan Bradley abradley@bcm.tmc.eduBalancer chromosomes are genetic reagents that are used in Drosophila melanogaster for stock maintenance and mutagenesis screens1. Despite their utility, balancer chromosomes are rarely used in mice because they are difficult to generate using conventional methods. Here we describe the engineering of a mouse balancer chromosome with the Cre-loxP recombination system. The chromosome features a 24-centiMorgan (cM) inversion between Trp53 (also known as p53) and Wnt3 on mouse chromosome 11 that is recessive lethal and dominantly marked with a K14-Agouti transgene2. When allelic to a wild-type chromosome, the inversion suppresses crossing over in the inversion interval, accompanied by elevated recombination in the flanking regions. The inversion functions as a balancer chromosome because it can be used to maintain a lethal mutation in the inversion interval as a self-sustaining trans-heterozygous stock. This strategy can be used to generate similar genetic reagents throughout the mouse genome. Engineering of visibly marked inversions and deficiencies is an important step toward functional analyses of the mouse genome and will facilitate large-scale mutagenesis programs.
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