Vezt^tm1Smc

A loxP site resides immediately upstream of exon 5, which is followed by a loxP-flanked Pgk1-neo cassette. Crossing mice homozygous for this allele to mice expressing Cre recombinase under control of a selected promoter results in developmental-stage or tissue-specific deletion of exon 5, which encodes the transmembrane domain shared by all three predicted isoforms of the protein. Reverse transcription- (RT-) PCR demonstrated expression of the expected 8-kb transcript in ES cells and in 8-cell- and blastocyst-stage embryos homozygous for this mutation. (J:121686)