Molecular analysis of heritable mouse mutations.

Germ-line mutations of the mouse have for years comprised one class of biological markers for mammalian reproductive and developmental toxicology. Understanding the molecular nature of mutations and the mechanisms by which mutations are translated into specific (and often complex) phenotypes, however, still looms as a major goal of mammalian biology. Molecular genetic analysis of heritable mouse mutations constitutes a significant, experimentally malleable strategy for relating genomic DNA structure to genic expression and function in mammals. The integrated use of recombinant DNA technology, which allows both the identification and analysis of expression of single genes, and classical genetic and cytogenetic analysis, which allow the important correlation between basic DNA defects and the organismic consequences of such defects, has been crucial to this strategy. Some of the approaches (e.g., specific-gene cloning, random-clone analysis of genomic regions, insertional mutagenesis) for studying the nature and effect of both mutations and their wild-type counterparts that have resulted from this integration of genetic analysis and molecular biology have been applied to many loci within the murine genome. Studies of the nature and effects of a complex set of radiation-induced mutations at the dilute-short ear (d-se) region of chromosome 9, a specific example of this type of integrated analysis, are discussed.