title: A bioluminescence reporter mouse that monitors expression of constitutively active β-catenin.
abstract: This short technical report describes the generation and characterization of a bioluminescence reporter mouse that is engineered to detect and longitudinally monitor the expression of doxycycline-induced constitutively active β-catenin. The new responder transgenic mouse contains the TetO-ΔN89β-CatTMILA transgene, which consists of the tet-operator followed by a bicistronic sequence encoding a stabilized form of active β-catenin (ΔN89β-catenin), an internal ribosome entry site, and the firefly luciferase gene. To confirm that the transgene operates as designed, TetO-ΔN89β-CatTMILA transgenic mouse lines were crossed with an effector mouse that harbors the mouse mammary tumor virus-reverse tetracycline transactivator (MMTV-rtTA) transgene (termed MTB hereon), which primarily targets rtTA expression to the mammary epithelium. Following doxycycline administration, the resultant MTB/CatTMILA bigenic reporter exhibited precocious lobuloalveologenesis, ductal hyperplasia, and mammary adenocarcinomas, which were visualized and monitored by in vivo bioluminescence detection. Therefore, we predict that the TetO-ΔN89β-CatTMILA transgenic responder mouse-when crossed with the appropriate effector transgenic-will have wide-applicability to non-invasively monitor the influence of constitutively active β-catenin expression on cell-fate specification, proliferation, differentiation, and neoplastic transformation in a broad spectrum of target tissues.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United States of America.
authors.forename: Maria M
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2715-2752
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Szwarc
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, United States of America.
authors.forename: Ramakrishna
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kommagani
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United States of America.
authors.forename: Mary C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Peavey
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United States of America.
authors.forename: Lan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hai
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United States of America.
authors.forename: David M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Lonard
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United States of America.
authors.forename: John P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Lydon
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004318:Doxycycline / Q000008:administration & dosage; D017930:Genes, Reporter; D049449:Luminescence; D008324:Mammary Tumor Virus, Mouse / Q000235:genetics; D051379:Mice; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D051176:beta Catenin / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D051176:beta Catenin; D004318:Doxycycline