FSHbeta knockout mouse model: a decade ago and into the future.

In 1997, more than 10 years ago now, we first reported the phenotypes of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) beta null mice. Since then, these mice have been useful for various physiological and genetic studies in reproductive biology. More recently, extra-gonadal functions of FSH have been discovered in bone. These studies opened up exciting avenues of new research on osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. Several genomics and proteomics tools and novel strategies to spatio-temporally restricting gene expression in vivo are available now. It is hoped that with the aid of these and other emerging technologies, an integrated network of FSH signaling pathways in various tissues would emerge in the near future. Undoubtedly, the coming 10 years should be more exciting to explore this "fertile" area of reproductive physiology research.