Mice hemizygous for this hCD2-iCre transgene are viable and fertile, with the human CD2 promoter and locus control region (LCR) directing expression of an optimized variant of Cre recombinase (iCre) to T cells and B cells (all committed B cell and T cell progenitors). Using crosses to a reporter strain, variegated germ line (testis) and a small monocyte-enriched population expression is also reported. When bred with mice containing a loxP-flanked sequence of interest, Cre-mediated recombination will result in deletion of the floxed sequence(s) in the offspring. These hCD2-iCre transgenic mice may be useful for generating conditional mutations in T cells and B cells.
Of note, this hCD2-iCre strain (Stock No. 008520) allows reliable deletion/gene targeting to be focused to T cells and B cells, whereas the Vav-iCre strain (Stock No. 008610) allows targeting throughout the entire hematopoietic compartment. hCD2-cre mice (Stock No. 027406) allow efficient deletion of genes in peripheral CD4+ and CD8+ T cells after positive selection in the thymus.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The donating investigator initially reported that while backcrossing these hCD2-iCre transgenic mice to C57BL/6 mice, transgenic mice always exhibited agouti coat color. This linkage suggests that the hCD2-iCre transgene integrated near agouti coat color genes. Due to a recombination event in the JAX colony (May 2015) the coat color is now black.
