The corepressor Rcor1 (REST corepressor 1) is essential for murine erythropoiesis. It represses expression of hematopoietic stem cells and myeloid genes.
Exon 4 of the mouse Rcor1 gene are flanked by loxP sites in this conditional mutant strain. Cre-mediated excision of the floxed region results in a null allele, as determined by Western blot.
Homozygous knockout mice generated through crosses with Meox2-Cre mice (see Stock No. 003755) show a block in fetal erythropoiesis at the proerythroblast stage. Animals die around embryonic day 16.5 due to severe anemia and fetal liver erythropoietic defects. Rcor1 null erythroid progenitors cultured in vitro form myeloid colonies instead of erythroid colonies.
Floxed mice can be bred with Mx1-Cre mice (see Stock No. 003556) to generate embryos in which the expression of Cre is inducible by IFN-α.
