Establishment of murine Smad5 double knockout ES cells and the studies on their properties

Smad5 is an intracellular transducer of TGF-beta signals. Targeted disruption of murine Smad5 gene resulted in embryonic lethal. To study the function of Smad5 in organgenesis, we generated Smad5 double knockout ES cells by homologous recombination. We deleted the neo gene of the Smad5 targeted ES cells using Cre-LoxP system. Smad5 double knockout ES cells were obtained by transfecting the targeted ES cells using the same targeting construct. The results of chimeric study showed that Smad5 might play an important role during the development of heart and neural tube.Smad5 double knockout ES cells formed teratoma when injected subcutaneously into nude mice. They differentiated into several types of cells, including neural cells, muscle cells, chondrocytes, endothelial cells and glandaceous cells. Smad5 double knockout ES cells are useful for studying the function of Smad5 mediated TGF-beta during the organgenesis and the in vitro differentiation of ES cells.