VelociMouse: Fully ES Cell-Derived F0-Generation Mice Obtained from the Injection of ES Cells into Eight-Cell-Stage Embryos

With the completion of the human and mouse genome sequences and the development of high-throughput knockout mouse technologies, there is now a need for equally high-throughput methods for the production of mice for phenotypic studies. In response to this challenge, we recently developed a new method termed VelociMouse for the production of F0-generation mice that are fully derived from gene-targeted ES cells. In the version of the VelociMouse method described here, laser ablation of a portion of the zona pellucid (zp) of a normal eight-cell-stage embryo facilitates ES cell injection. Upon gestation in a surrogate mother, the injected embryos produce F0 mice that carry no detectable host embryo contribution (<0.1%). The fully ES cell-derived mice are normal, healthy, and fertile and exhibit 100% germline transmission for optimal breeding efficiency. The VelociMouse method accommodates both inbred or hybrid ES cells and either inbred or outbred eight-cell host embryos. Because the F0 mice produced are suitable for direct phenotyping studies, the VelociMouse method, coupled with high-throughput ES cell targeting technologies, such as VelociGene, offers an accelerated path to new drug target discovery and validation and a revolutionary approach to realize the full value of large-scale functional genomic efforts, such as the NIH Knockout Mouse Project (1) and the European Conditional Mouse Mutagenesis Project(9).