| Abstract: |
Understanding the cellular events that underlie epithelial morphogenesis is a key problem in developmental biology. Here, we describe a new transgenic mouse line that makes it possible to visualize individual cells specifically in the Wolffian duct and ureteric bud, the epithelial structures that give rise to the collecting system of the kidney. myr-Venus, a membrane-associated form of the fluorescent protein Venus, was expressed in the ureteric bud lineage under the control of the Hoxb7 promoter. In Hoxb7/myr-Venus mice, the outlines of all Wolffian duct and ureteric bud epithelial cells are strongly labeled at all stages of urogenital development, allowing the shapes and arrangements of individual cells to be readily observed by confocal microscopy of freshly excised or cultured kidneys. This strain should be extremely useful for studies of cell behavior during ureteric bud branching morphogenesis in wild type and mutant mouse lines. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. |
| Keywords: |
controlled study; protein expression; unclassified drug; promoter region; genetics; nonhuman; protein analysis; mouse; animal; cytology; metabolism; mouse mutant; animals; mice; animal tissue; mus; gene expression; confocal microscopy; microscopy, confocal; embryo; gfp; morphogenesis; homeodomain proteins; wild type; photoprotein; transgenic mouse; mus musculus; luminescent proteins; mice, transgenic; prenatal development; bacterial protein; bacterial proteins; kidney; hybrid protein; recombinant fusion proteins; three dimensional imaging; imaging, three-dimensional; nucleotide sequence; membrane protein; newborn; epithelium cell; base sequence; dna primers; branching; epithelium; protein hoxb7; protein myr venus; homeodomain protein; hoxb7 protein, mouse; primer dna; yellow fluorescent protein, bacteria; branching morphogenesis; cell shape; embryonic structures; epithelization; mouse strain; ureter; urogenital system; cba mouse; organ culture technique; wolffia; animals, newborn; mice, inbred cba; organ culture techniques
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