Fertile Homozygous Transgenic Mice Expressing a Functional Truncated Herpes Simplex Thymidine Kinase ΔTK Gene

Dividing cells expressing the Herpes simplex type 1 thymidine kinase (TK) can be killed upon ganciclovir treatment. Likewise, conditional cell knock-out can be obtained in transgenic mice expressing a TK gene placed under the control of tissue-specific regulatory sequences. Such animals provide powerful experimental systems for assessing the functional role of specific cell populations through their time-controlled ablation. However, whatever the regulatory sequences used, a leaky toxic overexpression of TK in testis renders male TK-transgenic mice sterile and prevents the generation of homozygous TK-expressing animals. To solve this problem, we designed a truncated TK variant (ΔTK) not expressed in the testis. We generated transgenic mice expressing ΔTK under the control of lymphocyte-specific regulatory sequences derived from the CD4 gene. The ΔTK protein expressed in T-lymphocytes allowed the conditional ablation of activated T-cells in vitro and in vivo. Importantly, for one transgenic line we could generate fertile homozygous mice harboring a functional ΔTK transgene. ΔTK should thus dramatically facilitate the development of transgenic mice expressing a conditional suicide gene.