Transgenic Mice in Myelin in Research

Transgenic experiments have been valuable in identifying transcriptional regulatory regions responsible for specifying the tissue and developmental profile of expression of a number of genes. In this chapter, the author discusses the general approaches used in most transgenic studies and reviews several transgenic experiments that have had a direct impact on myelin research. They discusses future directions of transgenic studies in myelin research. The exploitation of the transgenic approach in the analysis of the myelination process will increase as more regulatory regions are defined that direct transcription to myelinating cells or their progenitors. The expression of toxin genes and transforming genes in myelinating cell progenitors will assist in the analysis of glial cell lineages. Furthermore, mouse mutants that are completely deficient in the expression of a particular myelin protein can be the host of transgenic experiments designed to examine structure-function aspects of the deficient protein.