PHYSIOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF BRANCHED-CHAIN AMINO ACIDS IN MUSCLES

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Branched-chainα-etoacid dehydrogenase(BCKDH) complex is a rate-limiting enzyme of the branched-chain amino acid(BCAA) catabolism and is regulated by the specific kinase(BCKDH kinase : BDK). In the present study, we aimed to generate muscle-specific BDK deficient mice, which may result in muscle-specific BCAA deficiency due to the acceleration of BCAA catabolism. We used the Cre-loxP system to generate the conditional BDK-knockout(KO) mice ; recombinant ES cells containing a conditional allele of the mouse BDK gene that was engineered by flanking exons 9-12 with loxP sites. Thus, exons 9-12 are deleted by the expression of Cre recombinase. In the first trial, we obtained chimeric mice without the floxed BDK gene in the germ line. In the second trial, we again obtained the chimeric mice, which is used to produce heterozygous BDK-gene-floxed offsprings.