Tissue specific knockout mice are valuable tools to study gene function in vivo. The method uses the Cre/loxP system in which loxP sites are cloned into the genome surrounding one or more exons of a gene and the targeted exon(s) are deleted when the Cre enzyme is expressed. Mouse lines that are prepared for the generation of knockout ERα mice have been developed independently by many research groups and the number of available transgenic mouse lines that express Cre under tissue specific promoters is large. Here, we describe how tissue specific ERα knockout mice are generated.
Keywords: Cre enzyme; Estrogen receptor; Floxed; Gene target ing; Genotyping; Knockout mice; Tissue specific; Transgenic; loxP.