Consortium for large-scale production and cryopreservation of knockout mice

描述（由申请人提供）：参考人类基因组的注释已经鉴定了大约20,000个蛋白质编码基因和3,000个非编码rna。这些基因共同协调生物体的发育，支持细胞、组织、器官系统以及生理和行为的各个方面的功能。1000个基因组计划揭示了人类基因组的非凡多样性水平，但对于大多数基因来说，正常版本的功能和功能丧失变体的疾病后果都是未知的。小鼠为了解基因及其变异的功能提供了一条途径。小鼠在发育、生理、解剖和代谢方面与人类相似，这在健康和患病状态下都很明显。这反映了两个物种基因的相似性。利用胚胎干细胞技术产生的突变小鼠是一种敏感的生物检测系统，可以从中深入了解功能，并为进一步研究提供持久的生物资源。该提案的目的是利用先前NIH （KOMP）和EU （EUCOMM）资助的项目中产生的具有条件靶向、lacz标记等位基因的胚胎干细胞资源产生突变小鼠。我们和其他人将利用这些老鼠来发现基因的功能。我们提议大规模开展这项工作，并组成了一个由三个研究所（贝勒医学院、桑格研究所和MRC Harwell）组成的联盟，作为平等的合作伙伴共同努力实现这一目标。我们将从桑格研究所分发的胚胎干细胞中，培育出1500个突变基因对应的小鼠。”我们将描述每个目标基因的成人和胚胎表达模式，并通过育种确定每个目标基因对胚胎发育和生育力的要求（如果有的话）。所有的等位基因将被冷冻保存并放置在一个储存库中，所有的数据将被存放在一个集中的数据协调中心，以支持进一步的研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Annotation of the reference human genome has identified approximately 20,000 protein coding genes as well as 3,000 non-coding RNAs. Together these genes orchestrate the development of the organism, supporting all aspects of the function of cells, tissues, organ systems as well physiology and behavior. The l000 genomes project has revealed extraordinary levels of diversity in human genomes, yet for most genes neither the function of normal version nor the disease consequence of loss-of-function variants is known. The mouse provides a route to understand the function of genes and their variants. Mice share developmental, physiological, anatomical and metabolic parallels with humans, which are evident in healthy as well as diseased states. These reflect similarities of the genes in both species. Mutant mice generated using ES cell technology are a sensitive biological assay system from which a deep understanding of function can be gleaned and they also provide a long lasting biological resource for further study. The objective of this proposal is to generate mutant mice from a resource of ES cells with conditionally targeted, lacZ-tagged alleles generated under previous NIH (KOMP) and EU (EUCOMM) funded programs. We and others will use these mice to discover the function of genes. We are proposing to carry out this work at scale and have formed a consortium of three Institutes (Baylor College of Medicine, the Sanger Institute and MRC Harwell) to work together as equal partners to achieve this objective. We will generate mice corresponding to 1500 mutant genes from ES cells distributed by the Sanger Institute. We will characterize the adult and embryonic expression pattern of the each targeted gene and by breeding determine the requirement of each for embryonic development and fertility, if any. All of the alleles will be cryo-preserved and placed in a repository and all of the data will be deposited in a centralized data coordination center to support further studies. RELEVANCE: Most of the 20,000 genes in a typical person are normal but we also have several hundred broken ones. While some broken genes can cause severe disease such as cystic fibrosis or cancer, others have little or no consequence, or function only under stress. Currently we have some understanding of the function of just one third of human genes. If we are to fully understand human health and disease we must expand knowledge of gene function to all of our genes.