The International Knockout Mouse Consortium (IKMC) is a scientific endeavour to produce a collection of mouse
embryonic stem cell lines that together lack every
gene
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a b ...
in the
genome
In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ...
, and then to distribute the cells to
scientific researchers to create
knockout mice to study.
Many of the targeted
allele
An allele (, ; ; modern formation from Greek ἄλλος ''állos'', "other") is a variation of the same sequence of nucleotides at the same place on a long DNA molecule, as described in leading textbooks on genetics and evolution.
::"The chrom ...
s are designed so that they can generate both complete and
conditional gene knockout Conditional gene knockout is a technique used to eliminate a specific gene in a certain tissue, such as the liver. This technique is useful to study the role of individual genes in living organisms. It differs from traditional gene knockout because ...
mice.
The IKMC was initiated on March 15, 2007 at a meeting in
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
. By 2011, ''Nature'' reported that approximately 17,000 different genes have already been disabled by the consortium, "leaving only around 3,000 more to go".
The consortium encompasses four major, high-throughput gene-targeted
mutagenesis programs: the
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the lat ...
(NIH)-sponsored Knockout Mouse Program (KOMP) and state-funded
Texas Institute for Genomic Medicine
The Texas A&M Institute for Genomic Medicine (TIGM) is a research institute of Texas A&M AgriLife Research. It was founded in 2005 under a $50 million award from the Texas Enterprise Fund to accelerate the pace of medical discoveries and foster t ...
(TIGM) in the U.S., the North American Conditional Mouse Mutagenesis (NorCOMM) Program in Canada, and the European Conditional Mouse Mutagenesis (
EUCOMM The European Conditional Mouse Mutagenesis Program or EUCOMM is an EU-funded program to generate a library of mutant mouse embryonic stem cells for research purposes.
Setup
The EUCOMM program is funded by the European Union sixth R&D program ...
) Programme in Europe.
The first of its annual meetings of members and funders, hosted by the country of its rotating chair, was held at the NIH in
Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland. It is located just northwest of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House (1820, rebuilt 1849), which ...
in the United States for 2007–2008, with
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
, Canada hosting for 2008–2009.
References
{{reflist
External links
International Knockout Mouse ConsortiumKnockout Mouse Project (KOMP) RepositoryNorth American Conditional Mouse Mutagenesis (NorCOMM) ProgramEuropean Union Conditional Mouse Mutagenesis (EUCOMM) ProgrammeTexas Institute for Genomic Medicine (TIGM)
Biological databases
Genetically modified organisms