A new approach for studying gene regulation by distant DNA elements in transgenic mice

Apolipoprotein B (apo-B) plays a crucial role in the assembly of lipoproteins in the liver and the intestine. Here, we review how transgenic mouse expression studies with large genomic clones have been used to define distant cis-acting regulatory DNA sequences that control the expression of the apo-B gene. In early studies, apo-B transgenic mice were generated with approximately 80-kb P1 bacteriophage clones spanning either the human or the mouse apo-B genes. Both the human and mouse clones directed high levels of transgene expression in the liver, but transgene expression was absent in the intestine. The absence of transgene expression in the intestine was surprising because both P1 clones contained more than 11 kb of flanking sequences both 5' and 3' to the gene. Subsequently, we isolated and characterized 145-kb and 207-kb bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones that spanned the human apo-B gene. Each of these BAC's contained extensive 5 and 3' flanking sequences and each directed spatially and physiologically appropriate apo-B gene expression in the intestines of transgenic mice. To define the location of the sequences that control intestinal expression of the apo-B gene, we generated transgenic mice by co-microinjecting the approximately 80-kb P1 bacteriophage clone (which did not confer intestinal expression of apo-B) with either the 5' sequences or the 3' sequences from the 145-kb BAC. Analysis of the apo-B expression pattern in those mice revealed that the DNA sequences controlling intestinal expression were located 5' to the apo-B gene. Next, we used recA-assisted restriction endonuclease (RARE) cleavage to truncate specific segments of the 5' and 3' flanking sequences from the 145-kb BAC. A series of the truncated BAC's containing different lengths of 5' and 3' sequences was used to generate more than 40 additional lines of human apo-B transgenic mice. Analysis of human apo-B gene expression in those mice demonstrated that the sequences controlling the expression of the apo-B gene in the intestine are located more than 50 kb 5' to the apo-B gene. Our studies demonstrate that the RARE cleavage/transgenic expression strategy is a powerful approach for examining gene regulation by distant gene-regulatory elements.