Gene targeting and transgenic approaches to igf and igf binding
protein function.
Wood, Teresa L.
Department of Neuroscience and Anatomy, PSU/College of Medicine,
P.O. Box 850, Hershey, PA 17033
APStracts 2:0101E, 1995.
The ability to manipulate genetic information in the germ line of mice
has provided powerful approaches to study gene function in vivo.
These approaches have included the establishment of mouse lines in
which a specified gene or genes are overexpressed, ectopically
expressed or deleted. Transgenic and gene-targeted mouse lines have
been used extensively to study the function of the insulin-like
growth factors, IGF-I and IGF-II, their receptors and binding
proteins. In the IGF system, these technologies have elucidated the
roles of the IGFs in fetal and somatic growth and have demonstrated a
critical role for this system in transformation and tumorigenesis.
Analysis of combinatorial crosses of gene-targeted mouse lines also
has suggested the existence of an as yet unidentified IGF receptor
that regulates fetal growth. Similar approaches using transgenic and
gene-targeted mouse models have been initiated to study the in vivo
functions of the IGF binding proteins. These mouse models provide
important tools to test specific functional questions in vivo as well
as to study the long-term physiological consequences of chronic gene
alterations.
Received 10 February 1995; accepted in final form 25 April 1995.
APS Manuscript Number E59-5.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Endocrinol. Metab.).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1995 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 16 May 1995.