The gene was disrupted by replacement of 219 bp of exon 2 and the 3' splice acceptor with a PGK-neo cassette via homologous recombination. The mutant allele generates a fusion between exons 1 and 3 resulting in an out-of-frame transcript with a nonsense codon in exon 3. The mutant allele was verified by RT-PCR and sequence analysis. (J:58137)