Trans-NIH neuroscience initiatives on mouse phenotyping and mutagenesis

In the post-genomic era, the laboratory mouse will excel as a premier mamma lian system to study normal and disordered biological processes, in part be cause of low cost, but largely because of the rich opportunities that exist for exploiting genetic tools and technologies in the mouse to systematical ly determine mammalian gene function. Many robust models of human disease m ay therefore be developed, and these in turn will provide critical clues to understanding gene function. The full potential of the mouse for understan ding many of the neural and behavioral phenotypes of relevance to neuroscie ntists has yet to be realized. With the full anatomy of the mouse genome at hand, researchers for the first time will be able to move beyond tradition al gene-by-gene approaches and take a global view of gene expression patter ns crucial for neurobiological processes. In response to an action plan for mouse genomics developed on the basis of recommendations from the scientif ic community, seven institutes of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) i nitiated in 1999 a mouse genetics research program that specifically focuse d on neurobiology and complex behavior. The specific goals of these neurosc ience initiatives are to develop high-throughput phenotyping assays and to initiate genome-wide mutagenesis projects to identify hundreds of mutant st rains with heritable abnormalities of high relevance to neuroscientists. As says and mutants generated in these efforts will be made widely available t o the scientific community, and such resources will provide neuroscientists unprecedented opportunities to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of neura l function and complex behavior. Such research tools ultimately will permit the manipulation and analysis of the mouse genome, as a means of gaining i nsight into the genetic bases of the mammalian nervous system and its compl ex disorders.