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Cre‐mediated recombination can induce apoptosis in vivo by activating the p53 DNA damage‐induced pathway
Author(s) -
Zhu Jianjian,
Nguyen MinhThanh,
Nakamura Eiichiro,
Yang Junming,
Mackem Susan
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
genesis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.093
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1526-968X
pISSN - 1526-954X
DOI - 10.1002/dvg.20799
Subject(s) - dna damage , in vivo , apoptosis , microbiology and biotechnology , dna , cancer research , biology , dna repair , recombination , chemistry , genetics , gene
Cre‐mediated apoptosis has been observed in many contexts in mice expressing Cre‐recombinase and can confound the analysis of genetically engineered conditional mutant or transgenic alleles. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain this phenomenon. We find that the degree of apoptosis induced correlates roughly with the copy number of lox P sites present in the genome and that some level of increased apoptosis accompanies the presence of even only a few lox P sites, as occurs in conditional f lox ed alleles. Cre‐induced apoptosis in this context is completely p53‐dependent, suggesting that the apoptosis is stimulated by p53 activation in response to DNA damage incurred during the process of Cre‐mediated recombination. genesis 50:102–111, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.