Analysis of the integrant in MyK-103 transgenic mice in which males fail to transmit the integrant

Abstract

Males in the transgenic mouse pedigree MyK-103, although fertile, do not transmit the integrant to offspring. The integrant is on chromosome 6 near the T-cell receptor beta-chain locus. It contains four fragments of the plasmid pMK (a metallothionein-thymidine kinase fusion gene) and a 532-base-pair fragment of displaced mouse DNA originating from a previously uncharacterized repetitive DNA family. The integration complex is flanked on either side by a 5-kilobase duplication of mouse DNA normally found in a single copy at this locus. Sequence analysis of the six novel junctions and their donor sequences shows that plasmid-plasmid junctions occurred at patches of limited homology, whereas chromosome-plasmid junctions were nonhomologous.