Mice homozygous for this "Fasfl" conditional allele are viable and fertile, with loxP sites flanking exon 9 of the targeted gene. When bred to mice that express Cre recombinase, exon 9 (which encodes the death domain) is deleted in the cre-expressing tissues in the resulting offspring.
These Fasfl mice may be useful in generating conditional mutations for studying many aspects of immune function. For example, when Fasfl mice are crossed to a strain expressing Cre recombinase in B lineage cells (see Stock No. 004126 or 006785 ), this mutant mouse strain may be useful in studies of lymphoproliferative disorder. Similarly, when Fasfl mice are crossed to an interferon inducible strain with widespread Cre recombinase expression (see Stock No. 003556, 005673, or 002527), this mutant mouse strain may be useful in studies of lymphoproliferative disease. Further, deletion of Fas in T cells (by crossing Fasfl mice to a CD4-cre transgenic strain) produces mice that develop progressive lymphopenia and inflammatory pulmonary fibrosis which resembles idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in humans.
