Description:
Generation of a floxed
Gnsa gene for the G-protein Gs alpha (G
salpha) for the construction of conditional knockout mice.
The heterotrimeric G protein G
salpha couples many receptors to adenylyl cyclase and is essential for hormone-stimulated cAMP generation. Previous mouse models with germ-line mutations in
Gnas, the gene that encodes G
salpha had limited usefulness in trying to decipher the role of G
salpha pathways in specific tissues since only heterozygotes were viable and could be analyzed. Analysis was further complicated by the fact that G
salpha is imprinted expressed in many metabolically active tissues.
G
salpha-floxed mice were generated so that the metabolic effects of G
salpha deficiency could be examined in specific tissues. Exon1, which is specific for G
salpha, was surrounded with loxP recombination sites. Liver-specific knockouts of G
salpha were obtained by mating the G
salpha-floxed mice with albumin promoter-Cre-transgenic mice. G
salpha exon1 was efficiently deleted. These mice have been used successfully to generate other tissue-specfic G
salpha knockout mice.