Tyrosinase is a type I membrane protein found in melanosomes, which are lysosomal-like organelles and specific for pigment cells. A mutation of mouse tyrosinase, platinum (cp), leads to truncation of tyrosinase's cytosolic tail, and results in misrouting to the cell periphery. In this study, we expressed chimeras of wild-type and mutant cytosolic tails of mouse tyrosinase fused to rat lysosome-...

Epidermal Langerhans cells (LCs) and dermal dendritic cells (dDCs) capture cutaneous antigens and present them to T-cells in lymph nodes (LNs). The function of LCs and Langerin+ dDCs was extensively studied in the mouse, but their anatomical repartition is unknown. Here, we found LCs in back skin, footpads and tail skin of C57BL/6, BALB/c, 129/Sv and CBA/J mice. Langerin+ dDCs were readily obse...

The outgrowth of the vertebrate tail is thought to involve the proliferation of regionalised stem/progenitor cell populations formed during gastrulation. To follow these populations over extended periods, we used cells from GFP-positive transgenic chick embryos as a source for donor tissue in grafting experiments. We determined that resident progenitor cell populations are localised in the chic...

Our aim is to identify an extraction method and the source of mouse tissue(s) that could allow a high-resolution genomic scan from a living mouse. We compared and optimized two methods for yield, purity of DNA, and their use in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of DNA extracted from different mouse tissues. In addition to whole blood, tissue samples from the brain, liver, testis, and tail wer...

BACKGROUND Among mouse genetic mutants that develop neural tube defects (NTDs), some respond to folic acid administration during early pregnancy, whereas NTDs in other mutants are not prevented. This parallels human NTDs, in which up to 30% of cases may be resistant to folic acid. Most spina bifida cases in the folic acid-resistant 'curly tail' mouse can be prevented by treatment with inositol ...

During vertebrate development, the posterior end of embryo progressively elongates in a head-to-tail direction to form body plan. Recent lineage tracing experiments revealed that bi-potent progenitors, called neuromesodermal progenitors (NMPs), produce caudal neural and mesodermal tissues during axial elongation. However, their precise location contribution spinal cord development remain elusiv...