Breeding “knockout” mice is a prized tool for evaluating the
function of genes, but it is a ponderous and costly tool,
consuming many months and thousands of dollars to create each
new knockout strain. But that could soon change. In today’s
issue of Nature, researchers at a Texas-based company, Lexicon
Genetics, describe a new technique that mutates genes at random
in embyonic stem cells, used to make knockout mice, and then
automatically identifies the mutated gene. The method makes it
possible to produce a library of thousands of cells, each one
with a mutation in a single known gene. A researcher can simply
order a cell with a specified gene knockout. The company has
said that scientists engaged in noncommercial research can
obtain the cells free of charge. For further information,
contact: Brian P. Zambrowicz tel +1 281 364 0100, fax +1 281 364
0155, email firstname.lastname@example.org.-June Kinoshita.
Reference:Zambrowicz BP, Friedrich GA, Buxton EC, Lilleberg SL,
Person C, Sands AT. Disruption and sequ