title: Simple and rapid determination of homozygous transgenic mice via in vivo fluorescence imaging.
abstract: Setting up breeding programs for transgenic mouse strains require to distinguish homozygous from the heterozygous transgenic animals. The combinational use of the fluorescence reporter transgene and small animal in-vivo imaging system might allow us to rapidly and visually determine the transgenic mice homozygous for transgene(s) by the in vivo fluorescence imaging. RLG, RCLG or Rm17LG transgenic mice ubiquitously express red fluorescent protein (RFP). To identify homozygous RLG transgenic mice, whole-body fluorescence imaging for all of newborn F2-generation littermates produced by mating of RFP-positive heterozygous transgenic mice (F1-generation) derived from the same transgenic founder was performed. Subsequently, the immediate data analysis of the in vivo fluorescence imaging was carried out, which greatly facilitated us to rapidly and readily distinguish RLG transgenic individual(s) with strong fluorescence from the rest of F2-generation littermates, followed by further determining this/these RLG individual(s) showing strong fluorescence to be homozygous, as strongly confirmed by mouse mating. Additionally, homozygous RCLG or Rm17LG transgenic mice were also rapidly and precisely distinguished by the above-mentioned optical approach. This approach allowed us within the shortest time period to obtain 10, 8 and 2 transgenic mice homozygous for RLG, RCLG and Rm17LG transgene, respectively, as verified by mouse mating, indicating the practicality and reliability of this optical method. Taken together, our findings fully demonstrate that the in vivo fluorescence imaging offers a visual, rapid and reliable alternative method to the traditional approaches (i.e., mouse mating and real-time quantitative PCR) in identifying homozygous transgenic mice harboring fluorescence reporter transgene under the control of a ubiquitous promoter in the situation mentioned in this study.
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Institute, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Xiaolin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Institute, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Junshuang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Institute, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Yujuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Institute, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Xia
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Institute, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Institute, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Gaofang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Institute, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Yanqing
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Institute, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Raoying
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Institute, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Hailu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Institute, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.affiliation: Institute of Comparative Medicine & Laboratory Animal Center, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Qinghong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Comparative Medicine & Laboratory Animal Center, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Wanshan
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Construction and Detection in Tissue Engineering, School of Basic Medical Science, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Wenhua
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Institute, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Kaitai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Institute, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.|Institute of Comparative Medicine & Laboratory Animal Center, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Dong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: Joint Program in Transfusion Medicine, Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001947:Breeding / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006720:Homozygote; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008822:Mice, Transgenic / Q000235:genetics*; D061848:Optical Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
keywords: fluorescence reporter gene; homozygote; in vivo qualitative and quantitative fluorescence imaging; transgenic mice