Hemizygous transgenic mice are viable, fertile, normal in size, and do not display any gross physical or behavioral abnormalities. These transgenic mice express the reverse tetracycline-controlled transactivator (rtTA) protein under the control of the human SFTPC, surfactant, pulmonary-associated protein C, promoter. rtTA activity is detected in lung peripheral epithelial cells from adult mice and in embryos from pregnant females treated with the tetracycline analog, doxycycline (dox). In the latter, rtTA-induced expression of a luciferase reporter under the regulation of a tetracycline-responsive promoter (TRE; tetO) has been detected as early as embryonic day 10.5. When hemizygotes are mated to a second transgenic strain carrying a gene of interest under the regulatory control of a TRE, expression of the target gene in the bitransgenic offspring may be regulated by dox; in the presence of dox, transcription of the target gene is induced in cells where rtTA is expressed. This strain provides a "Tet-On" tool that allows the inducible expression of genes in the developing and adult lung and respiratory epithelium. Please note that some level of rtTA expression may be present in lung tissue from mice untreated with dox.
In an attempt to offer alleles on well-characterized or multiple genetic backgrounds, alleles frequently are moved to a genetic background different from that on which an allele was first characterized. This is the case for this strain. It should be noted that the phenotype could vary from that originally described. We will modify the strain description if necessary as published results become available.
