Efficient ROSA26-based conditional and/or inducible transgenesis using RMCE-compatible F1 hybrid mouse embryonic stem cells.

The conditional Cre/loxP system and/or the doxycycline (Dox) inducible Tet-on/off system are widely used in mouse transgenesis but often require time consuming, inefficient cloning/screening steps and extensive mouse breeding strategies. We have therefore developed a highly efficient Gateway- and recombinase-mediated cassette exchange (RMCE)-compatible system to target conditional and/or inducible constructs to the ROSA26 locus of F1 hybrid Bl6/129 ESCs, called G4 ROSALUC ESCs. By combining the Cre/loxP system with or without the inducible Tet-on system using Gateway cloning, we can rapidly generate spatial and/or temporal controllable gain-of-function constructs that can be targeted to the RMCE-compatible ROSA26 locus of the G4 ROSALUC ESCs with efficiencies close to 100 %. These novel ESC-based technologies allow for the creation of multiple gain-of-function conditional and/or inducible transgenic ESC clones and mouse lines in a highly efficient and locus specific manner. Importantly, incorporating insulator sequences into the Dox-inducible vector system resulted in robust, stable transgene expression in undifferentiated ESCs but could not fully overcome transgene mosaicism in the differentiated state.