Strategies for the Production and Phenotypic Analysis of Mutations in the Mouse

The laboratory mouse is one of the primary model organisms for human biology and genetics. The production and phenotypic analysis of mutations in the mouse has made great strides with targeted mutagenesis in embryonic stem (ES) cells and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas gene editing in preimplantation embryos. Mutations in many genes are now available or can be easily produced. For anyone planning to use mutational analysis for a research program, this article introduces an overall strategy for obtaining or generating a mutation and systematically analyzing the phenotype.