Motor coordination deficits in Alpk1 mutant mice with the inserted piggyBac transposon

BMC Neuroscience

Research Article

Muyun Chen¹  Rener Xu¹ 

[1] Institute of Developmental Biology & Molecular Medicine, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, 200433, Shanghai, China;

关键词: Purkinje Cell;    Wild Type Control;    Motor Coordination;    Rotarod Test;    Alpha Kinase;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2202-12-1

 received in 2010-08-16, accepted in 2011-01-05,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundALPK1 (α-kinase 1) is a member of an unconventional alpha-kinase family, and its biological function remains largely unknown. Here we report the phenotypic characterization of one mutant line, in which the piggyBac (PB) transposon is inserted into the Alpk1 gene.ResultsThe piggyBac(PB) insertion site in mutants was mapped to the first intron of the Alpk1 gene, resulting in the effective disruption of the intact Alpk1 transcript expression. The transposon-inserted Alpk1 homozygous mutants (Alpk1PB/PB ) displayed severe defects in motor coordination in a series of behavioral analysis, including dowel test, hanging wire test, rotarod analysis and footprint analysis. However, the cerebellar architecture, Purkinje cell morphology and electrophysiology of the Purkinje cells appeared normal in mutants. The motor coordination deficits in the Alpk1PB/PB mice were rescued by transgenic mice expressing the full-length Alpk1-coding sequence under the control of the ubiquitous expression promoter.ConclusionsOur results indicate that ALPK1 plays an important role in the regulation of motor coordination. Alpk1PB/PB mice would be a useful model to provide a clue to the better understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of ALPK1 in the control of fine motor activities.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Chen and Xu; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011