A bioluminescence reporter mouse that monitors expression of constitutively active ?-catenin.

ABSTRACT: This short technical report describes the generation and characterization of a bioluminescence reporter mouse that is engineered to detect and longitudinally monitor the expression of doxycycline-induced constitutively active ?-catenin. The new responder transgenic mouse contains the TetO-?N89?-CatTMILA transgene, which consists of the tet-operator followed by a bicistronic sequence encoding a stabilized form of active ?-catenin (?N89?-catenin), an internal ribosome entry site, and the firefly luciferase gene. To confirm that the transgene operates as designed, TetO-?N89?-CatTMILA transgenic mouse lines were crossed with an effector mouse that harbors the mouse mammary tumor virus-reverse tetracycline transactivator (MMTV-rtTA) transgene (termed MTB hereon), which primarily targets rtTA expression to the mammary epithelium. Following doxycycline administration, the resultant MTB/CatTMILA bigenic reporter exhibited precocious lobuloalveologenesis, ductal hyperplasia, and mammary adenocarcinomas, which were visualized and monitored by in vivo bioluminescence detection. Therefore, we predict that the TetO-?N89?-CatTMILA transgenic responder mouse-when crossed with the appropriate effector transgenic-will have wide-applicability to non-invasively monitor the influence of constitutively active ?-catenin expression on cell-fate specification, proliferation, differentiation, and neoplastic transformation in a broad spectrum of target tissues.

SUBMITTER: Szwarc MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5333872 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature