Learn About the Gene Targeting and Transgenic Facility
On Thursday, March 25, 2021, at noon, during the Pathways to Success at Einstein Cores bimonthly seminar series, accessible via Zoom, learn how resources and services within Einstein’s Gene Targeting and Transgenic Facility can aid your research. Facility scientific director Winfried Edelmann, Ph.D.; operations director Ken Chen, M.D.; and Gene Modification Facility operations director Yongwei Zhang, Ph.D., will offer an overview of the facility's services and capabilities. Arthur Skoultchi, Ph.D., and John Chan, M.D., will then share how the core has enhanced their respective research efforts.
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The Gene Targeting and Transgenic Facility is a centralized facility for the production of transgenic and gene-targeted mice. The facility’s services allow researchers to modify the mouse genome through methods of conventional transgenesis. In addition, the facility is integrated with the Gene Modification facility to generate gene-targeted mice using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. It also offers services for BAC transgenesis and the generation of chimeric mice by injection of embryonic stem cells into blastocysts. Finally, the facility offers a wide variety of reproductive services including in vitro fertilization and mouse line re-derivation, sperm and embryo cryopreservation, and storage of cryopreserved sperm and embryos.
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Winfried Edelmann, Ph.D., scientific director of the Gene Targeting and Transgenic Facility
Facility Services
- Mouse Line Production
- CRISPR/Cas9-mediated generation of:
- Constitutive knockout models
- Knock-in models (small modifications <100bp)
- Conditional knockout models (Loxp alleles)
- Complex genetically engineered mouse models
- Traditional transgenic mice/BAC transgenic mice/lentiviral periviteline injection
- ES cell blastocyst injection for chimera production mouse line generation
- Reproductive Services
- In vitro fertilization
- Mouse line re-derivation
- Embryo cryopreservation and storage
- Sperm cryopreservation and storage
- Ovary transplantation
- Breeding/Mouse Colony Maintenance
- Establishment of mouse colonies
- Breeding of homozygous mouse lines
- Genotyping
It’s Been Said
“For more than 30 years, the Gene Targeting and Transgenic facility has provided services for generating genetically modified mouse models of human disease. Our facility is a shared resource offering transgenic, gene-targeting, and gene-modificationcapabilities. The facility generates, with high efficiency (~100% success rate), transgenic mouse strains through the introduction of DNA sequences, such as regular plasmid vectors or BAC clones, into the germ line by pronuclear injection or by lentivirus infection of fertilized oocytes. A major focus of the facility is the generation of gene-targeted mice through the use of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing. Gene-targeting services include the generation of conventional knockout mouse lines, knock-in mouse lines, and mouse lines with conditional alleles for the temporal and spatial ablation of genes. The facility is proud to provide a complete service for the cost-efficient generation of genetically modified mouse lines to all Einstein and Montefiore investigators.”
Winfried Edelmann, Ph.D.
Scientific Director, Gene Targeting and Transgenic Facility
Professor, Cell Biology; Genetics
The Joseph and Gertrud Buchler Chair in Transgenic Medicine
“The Gene Targeting and Transgenic Facility has played an absolutely essential role in my lab’s research program investigating the roles of H1 linker histones in mammalian development, chromatin structure, and gene regulation. Over the years, Dr. Edelmann and his highly talented and devoted staff have enabled us to produce a large number of H1 knockout mouse embryonic stem cell lines and mouse strains. The mammalian H1 linker histones are a particularly challenging subject for gene knockout studies because all somatic cells express multiple H1 genes, allowing cells to maintain the overall level of H1 when one or even two H1 genes are deleted by upregulating expression of the remaining genes. Dr. Edelmann and his staff helped us produce several double and triple H1 knockout mouse lines, and most recently a conditional triple knockout strain. We have used these mouse lines to demonstrate that H1 linker histones play a major role in regulating the cellular epigenetic landscape through positive and negative effects on some of the enzymes that ’write‘the core histone code. We could not have done this work without their help and expertise.”
Arthur Skoultchi, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Cell Biology
The Judith and Burton P. Resnick Chair in Cell Biology
“The state-of-the-art Einstein Gene Targeting and Transgenic Mouse Facility has played a pivotal role in the development of our work in studying the role of the tryptophan-catabolizing enzymes indoleamine 2.3-dioxygenases (IDOs) in shaping the host immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). IDO is a critical component of an enzymatic pathway that generates immunosuppressive tryptophan-derived molecules. We posit that Mtb exploits the immunosuppressive effect of IDO to evade anti-TB immunity in order to persist in an infected host. There are two isoforms of IDO (IDO1 and IDO2) with overlapping and distinct functions. For our study, the Gene Targeting Facility generated an ido1/ido2-/- double knockout mouse strain, a reagent that has proven critical to our obtaining NIH funding for the IDO work and to facilitating our research program that seeks to understand the immunoregulatory roles of the two IDO isoforms during tuberculous infection.”
John Chan, M.D.
Professor, Medicine ; Microbiology & Immunology
Posted on: Wednesday, March 24, 2021