The Mouse Genetics Project (MGP) is a large-scale

mutant In biology, and especially in genetics, a mutant is an organism or a new genetic character arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is generally an alteration of the DNA sequence of the genome or chromosome of an organism. It ...

mouse production and

phenotyping In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology or physical form and structure, its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological proper ...

programme aimed at identifying new

model organism A model organism (often shortened to model) is a non-human species that is extensively studied to understand particular biological phenomena, with the expectation that discoveries made in the model organism will provide insight into the workin ...

s of disease. Based at the

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute The Wellcome Sanger Institute, previously known as The Sanger Centre and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, is a non-profit British genomics and genetics research institute, primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust. It is located on the Wellcome G ...

, the project uses

knockout mice A knockout mouse, or knock-out mouse, is a genetically modified mouse (''Mus musculus'') in which researchers have inactivated, or "knocked out", an existing gene by replacing it or disrupting it with an artificial piece of DNA. They are importan ...

most of which were generated by the

International Knockout Mouse Consortium The International Knockout Mouse Consortium (IKMC) is a scientific endeavour to produce a collection of mouse embryonic stem cell lines that together lack every gene in the genome, and then to distribute the cells to scientific researchers to crea ...

. For each mutant line, groups of seven male and seven female mice move through a standard analysis pipeline aimed at detecting traits that differ from healthy

C57BL/6 C57BL/6, often referred to as "C57 black 6", "C57" or "black 6", is a common inbred strain of laboratory mouse. It is the most widely used "genetic background" for genetically modified mice for use as models of human disease. They are the most wid ...

mice. The pipeline collects many measurements of viability, fertility, body weight, infection, hearing, morphology, haematology, behaviour, blood chemistry and immunity and compares them to wild type controls using a statistical mixed model. These data are immediately shared among the scientific and medical research community through a bespoke

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...

database,Mouse Resources Portal

. and summaries are displayed in other online resources, including the Mouse Genome Informatics database and the Wikipedia-based

Gene Wiki The Gene Wiki is a project within Wikipedia that aims to describe the relationships and functions of all human genes. It was established to transfer information from scientific resources to Wikipedia stub articles. The Gene Wiki project also init ...

. As of July 2013, the MGP reports having over 900 mutant lines openly available to the international research community, and have "substantively complete" analysis for over 650 mutant lines, of which over 75 per cent have at least one abnormal phenotype. Among these are new discoveries of genes implicated in disease, including finding: *Mutation of

SLX4 SLX4 (also known as BTBD12 and FANCP) is a protein involved in DNA repair, where it has important roles in the final steps of homologous recombination. Mutations in the gene are associated with the disease Fanconi anemia. The version of SLX4 pres ...

causes a new type of

Fanconi anemia Fanconi anaemia (FA) is a rare genetic disease resulting in impaired response to DNA damage. Although it is a very rare disorder, study of this and other bone marrow failure syndromes has improved scientific understanding of the mechanisms of nor ...

. *Nine new genes that influence bone strength. * Mutation of

CENPJ Centromere protein J is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''CENPJ'' gene. It is also known as centrosomal P4.1-associated protein (CPAP). During cell division, this protein plays a structural role in the maintenance of centrosome integrit ...

models

Seckel syndrome Seckel syndrome, or microcephalic primordial dwarfism (also known as bird-headed dwarfism, Harper's syndrome, Virchow–Seckel dwarfism and bird-headed dwarf of Seckel) is an extremely rare congenital nanosomic disorder. Inheritance is autosomal r ...

. * SPNS2 is important in mammalian immune system function. * MYSM1 is important for hematopoiesis and

lymphocyte A lymphocyte is a type of white blood cell (leukocyte) in the immune system of most vertebrates. Lymphocytes include natural killer cells (which function in cell-mediated, cytotoxic innate immunity), T cells (for cell-mediated, cytotoxic ad ...

differentiation.

References

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External links

The Sanger Mouse Portal
containing all MGP data
The MGP Biomart
for extracting phenotypic data Biological databases Genetically modified organisms Laboratory mouse strains Wellcome Trust Research projects Genetic engineering in the United Kingdom Science and technology in Cambridgeshire South Cambridgeshire District

See also

References

External links