期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:1998
卷号:95
期号:15
页码:8692-8697
DOI:10.1073/pnas.95.15.8692
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:The murine paired box-containing gene Pax1 is required for normal development of the vertebral column, the sternum, and the scapula. Previous studies have shown that three natural Pax1 mouse mutants, the undulated alleles, exhibit phenotypes of different severity in these skeletal elements. Nevertheless, these analyses have not clarified whether the semidominant Undulated short-tail (Uns) mutation, in which the complete Pax1 locus is deleted, represents a null allele. Moreover, the analyses of the classical undulated mutants did not allow a conclusion with respect to haploinsufficiency of Pax1. To address both questions we have created a Pax1 null allele in mice by gene targeting. Surprisingly, the phenotype of this defined mutation exhibits clear differences to that of Uns. This result strongly indicates the contribution of additional gene(s) to the Uns mutant phenotype. Furthermore, the phenotype of mice heterozygous for the null allele demonstrates that Pax1 is haploinsufficient in some though not all skeletal elements which express Pax1 during embryonic development.