CREATE

This proposal describes CREATE, an internationally based Coordination Action directly addressing a large scale data gathering activity for systematic conditional mouse mutagenesis. Advances in the sophisticated manipulation of the mouse genome has established the mouse as the premier organism for developing models of human disease. Internationally coordinated initiatives have established for the systematic generation of conditional mouse mutants on a large scale employing the Cre-lox binary system. Production of mutant mouse ES cell lines, each of which carries an altered or floxed allele of a single gene allows the creation of somatic mutations in defined genes.

The full power of conditional mutants can only be exploited with the availability of well characterized mouse lines expressing Cre-recombinase in tissue, organ and cell type-specific patterns. Although several privately curated and locally held databases currently provide a limited catalog of existing Cre driver strains, these are not well integrated, and published data on Cre driver mice do not always capture critical details. CREATE will address these these combined shortcomings - inaccessibility to existing Cre driver strains, their incomplete characterization, and an inadequate coverage of cell and tissue types in which they are active which will soon constitute the major bottleneck for the future development of targeted conditional mutant models for the worldwide mouse mutagenesis initiative.

Its main deliverables will be a well-annotated and integrated data resource of Cre driver strains, and coordination of the expansion of the resource, both necessary components of the international mouse mutagenesis effort. By enlisting major mouse stakeholders dedicated to collecting, integrating and curating, expanding and disseminating Cre driver mouse databases through a unified web portal, CREATE will provide the necessary structure for worldwide access to these critical resources.