Transgenic mouse models have had an enormous impact on biomedical research. Generated through the random integration of DNA fragments, transgenesis can lead to insertional mutagenesis. Researchers report the first large-scale analysis of transgene insertion sites from 40 highly used transgenic mouse lines. Evidence suggests that the transgenes disrupt the coding sequence of endogenous genes in half of the lines, frequently involving large deletions and/or structural variations. The data highlights the need for careful characterization of each line to assure interpretable and reproducible experiments.
(R24OD011190, U42OD011185, UM1OD023222, U42OD010921)
Genome Res. 2019 Mar;29(3):494-505 https://genome.cshlp.org/content/29/3/494.long Large-scale discovery of mouse transgenic integration sites reveals frequent structural variation and insertional mutagenesis, Leslie O. Goodwin, Erik Splinter, Tiffany L. Davis, Rachel Urban, Hao He, Robert E. Braun, Elissa J. Chesler, Vivek Kumar, Max van Min, Juliet Ndukum, Vivek M. Philip, Laura G. Reinholdt, Karen Svenson, Jacqueline K. White, Michael Sasner, Cathleen Lutz and Stephen A. Murray