The mouse "tool box" for meiotic studies.

Besides availability, there are numerous advantages to using mice for meiotic studies: (1) techniques exist for enriching the population of spermatocytes at particular meiotic stages; (2) spermatogenesis in mice is highly synchronized and testis sections afford a highly accurate method of staging meiotic events; (3) knock-out mice provide a rich source of meiotic mutants. Coupled with antibody localization techniques these tools, singularly and in combination, provide multiple means of temporally and physically dissecting meiosis. Copyright 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel