NOVEL STRATEGIES TO PROBE THE FUNCTIONS OF SEROTONIN RECEPTORS

Gene targeting has proven to be extremely powerful in various fields o f biological research. Through this technique, knockout mice lacking a particular gene, and thus a particular protein, can be generated One limitation to this technique is the fact that mice develop without the protein of interest and therefore, developmental compensations may ha ve taken place, contributing to an observed phenotype. Inducible strat egies, those which allow he timing of expression of a gene to be regul ated, are currently being developed and should prove useful when appli ed to gene targeting technology. To begin to apply such new technologi es to the field of gene targeting, we first created and tested several reporter constructions using the tetracycline inducible system. Here we describe the creation of several beta-galactosidase reporter constr uctions and the results of in vitro testing in Cos-7 cells. We then di scuss future knockout strategies based upon our observations. (C) 1998 Society of Biological Psychiatry.