A functional floxed allele of Pkd1 that can be conditionally inactivated in vivo

Klaus B. Piontek, David L. Huso, Alexander Grinberg, Lijuan Liu, Djahida Bedja, Haidan Zhao, Kathleen Gabrielson, Feng Qian, Changlin Mei, Heiner Westphal, Gregory G. Germino*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

135 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Gene targeting has been used to create a variety of lines of mice with Pkd1 mutations that share many common features. Homozygous Pkd1 mutants invariably develop pancreatic and renal cysts if they survive to day 15.5 post coitum and die in either the fetal or the perinatal period. In contrast, mice with heterozygous mutations of Pkd1 are generally normal and have few if any renal cysts. These features have limited the utility of these models as tools to study the pathogenesis of cyst formation and the effect of various therapeutic interventions on disease progression. This report describes a new line of mice with a floxed allele of Pkd1 (Pkd1cond) that has an FRT-flanked neomycin cassette inserted into intron 1 and lox P sites inserted into intron 1 and intron 4. The Pkd1cond allele is fully functional, and homozygotes are viable and healthy. It is shown that the lox P and FRT sites can be selectively induced to recombine to produce two new alleles, Pkd1 del2-4 and Pkd1cond-Δneo, by crossing to animals that express either the ere or FLPe recombinase, respectively. It is found that Pkd1del2-4 allele functions as a true null, whereas presence or absence of the neomycin gene has no functional effects. It also is shown that somatic loss of Pkd1 results in renal and hepatic cysts. This new line of mice will be invaluable in the study of Pkd1 biology and serve as a powerful new tool that can be used to study the pathogenesis of autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3035-3043
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of the American Society of Nephrology
Volume15
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2004
Externally publishedYes

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