Lab Anim Res.  2020 Sep;36(3):260-267. 10.1186/s42826-020-00065-x.

Tamoxifen-inducible cardiac-specific Cre transgenic mouse using VIPR2 intron

• Chin HJ
• Lee Sy
• Lee D

• KMID: 2507239
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1186/s42826-020-00065-x

Abstract

Genetically engineered mouse models through gene deletion are useful tools for analyzing gene function. To delete a gene in a certain tissue temporally, tissue-specific and tamoxifen-inducible Cre transgenic mice are generally used. Here, we generated transgenic mouse with cardiac-specific expression of Cre recombinase fused to a mutant estrogen ligand-binding domain (ERT₂) on both N-terminal and C-terminal under the regulatory region of human vasoactive intestinal peptide receptor ₂ (VIPR₂) intron and Hsp68 promoter (VIPR2-ERT2CreERT₂). In VIPR₂-ERT₂CreERT₂ transgenic mice, mRNA for Cre gene was highly expressed in the heart. To further reveal heart-specific Cre expression, VIPR₂-ERT₂CreERT₂ mice mated with ROSA26-lacZ reporter mice were examined by X-gal staining. Results of X-gal staining revealed that Cre-dependent recombination occurred only in the heart after treatment with tamoxifen. Taken together, these results demonstrate that VIPR₂-ERT₂CreERT₂ transgenic mouse is a useful model to unveil a specific gene function in the heart.

Keyword

VIPR2 intron; ERT2CreERT2; Heart; Tamoxifen-inducible Cre transgenic mouse