Identification of the Pancreas Specific Cre Transgenic Mice Using PCR Analysis

We have generated six kinds of Cre transgenic mice in which the Cre recombinase driven by different tissue specific molecular marker promoter is expressed specifically in different tissues. The genotyping of these transgenic mice were performed using a pair of common primers designed in the coding region of Cre gene. In order to identify the pancreas specific transgenic mice which pancreas specific Cre recombinase expression, a pair of primers in the rat insulin promoter(RIP) and Cre gene were designed. The result of PCR analysis showed that a 480 bp fragment could be amplified from the genomic DNAs of all six tissue specific Cre recombinase transgenic mice using the common primers, while a 200 bp fragment could be obtained only from the genomic DNAs of the pancreas specific Cre transgenic mouse using the specific primers. The results indicated that we could distinguish the pancreas specific Cre transgenic mice from other tissue specific Cre transgenic mice by PCR analysis using the specific primers designed in this study.