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  Designer Mice

This set of tools will help you

• choose when to use designer mice.
• understand how designer mice are produced.

Adoptive Transfer
Cell Lines
Inbred and Congenic Mice
Knock-out Mice
Radiation Chimeras
Thymectomy and Bursectomy
Transgenic Mice

Adoptive Transfer and Radiation Chimeras

Inbred mouse strains are useful for adoptive transfer experiments, in which mice are irradiated to destroy their own immune systems and then reconstituted with cells from immunized mice or with cell lines of known antigen specificity. These radiation chimeras allow immunologists to do in vivo experiments with varying cell populations.

Cell Lines (table of mouse/human with cell type, MHC alleles, markers, and functions)

Inbred and Congenic Mice

Selective breeding has produced inbred mouse strains which have been used extensively to study immunity. Brother-sister matings are done until skin grafts between mice are not rejected; this selects for mice that are homozygous for their MHC genes, which encode antigen-presenting molecules and therefore influence the ability of mice to make immune responses. Congenic mice are bred which differ at a single MHC locus, so that the influence of individual MHC genes on graft rejection, antigen presentation, and antigen responsiveness can be studied.

Knock-Out Mice

The ability to manipulate DNA has led to the production of transgenic mice, where a specific gene has been inserted, and to knock-out mice, where a specific gene has been deleted.

Radiation Chimeras

Thymectomy and Bursectomy

Transgenic Mice

The ability to manipulate DNA has led to the production of transgenic mice, where a specific gene has been inserted, and to knock-out mice, where a specific gene has been deleted.

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