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Conditional gene knockout is a technique used to eliminate a specific gene in a certain tissue, such as the liver. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] This technique is useful to study the role of individual genes in living organisms.
A conditional gene knockout allows gene deletion in a tissue in a tissue specific manner. This is required in place of a gene knockout if the null mutation would lead to embryonic death, [13] or a specific tissue or cell type is of specific interest. This is done by introducing short sequences called loxP sites around the gene.
This figure depicts how Floxing is used in scientific research for spatial and temporal control of gene expression. In genetic engineering, floxing refers to the insertion of a DNA sequence (which is then said to be floxed) between two LoxP sequences, creating an artificial gene cassette which can then be conditionally deleted (knocked out), translocated, or inverted in a process called Cre ...
Conditional/inducible mutation approaches are then required that first allow the mouse to develop and mature normally prior to ablation of the gene of interest. Another serious limitation is a lack of evolutive adaptations in knockout model that might occur in wild type animals after they naturally mutate.
Cre-Lox recombination is a special type of site-specific recombination developed by Dr. Brian Sauer and patented by DuPont that operated in both mitotic and non-mitotic cells, and was initially used in activating gene expression in mammalian cell lines.
Due to the pronounced resolution activity of Cre, one of its initial applications was the excision of loxP-flanked ("floxed") genes leading to cell-specific gene knockout of such a floxed gene after Cre becomes expressed in the tissue of interest. Current technologies incorporate methods, which allow for both the spatial and temporal control of ...
Tests of necessity, among which are methods of lesioning or gene knockout, and tests of sufficiency, among which are methods of isolation or discrete stimulation of factors, have become important in current-day experimental designs, and application of these tests have led to a number of notable discoveries and findings in the biological sciences.
The Tet system has advantages over Cre, FRT, and ER (estrogen receptor) conditional gene expression systems. In the Cre and FRT systems, activation or knockout of the gene is irreversible once recombination is accomplished, whereas, in Tet and ER systems, it is reversible.