Prospects of EGF
Transgenic Mice Researches
WONG Richard W C1*, DONG Ming1, MAK
Kingston King-Lun2, CHAN Sin-Yuen2
( 1Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Graduate School of
Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan; 2Department
of paediatrics, The University of Hong Kong, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong,
China )
Abstract Genetic
engineering in mice has proven to be a powerful tool for studying the
specificity, complementarity and redundancy in the signalling cascades by
altering the structure or expression of a single gene or a set of genes, from
the ligands themselves to the specific receptors to the downstream
signallingplayers. These models have provided a wealth of information about the
effects of a number of oncogenes and growth factors. Transgenic and
gene-targeted mouse lines have been used extensively to study the function of
the EGFR and its ligands, insulin-like growth factor (IGF), their receptors and
binding proteins. This mini-review highlights some of the major recent findings
pertinent to the EGF and IGF-I/IGFBPS transgenic model. This mini-review
summarizes the current knowledge about the actions of EGF and IGFBP in vivo
based on the presently established transgenic mice. We focus on results
obtained from the application of transgenic and knockout models to determine
the roles of EGF, IGFs in the regulation of reproduction and growth development.
Key words EGF receptor； IGFBP； IGF； transgenic mice； overexpression
*Corresponding author： Tel, 81-3-5841-3336； Fax， 81-3-5689-4856； e-mail， [email protected]