Our bodies are kept homeostatically stable by the functions of proteins produced from many genes. In other words, our health is essentially dependent on the balance of our gene products. Many diseases can therefore be traced to a defect in, or malfunction of, various genes. To find and develop new drugs or new therapies, it is important to identify the function of each gene in vivo. However, at present, the functions of various genes remain poorly understood, which makes it difficult to clarify their relationships with each other, or to analyze in a systematic fashion how they participate in specific diseases.
Gene-disrupted animals can be powerful tools that help us to understand the role of certain genes in vivo. Such animals can be highly useful as models of various human diseases as well as for screening for new drugs. Thus, many countries are producing gene-disrupted mouse lines of entire genes as national research projects in hopes of finding cures for diseases. In this context, the Japanese effort remains small and needs to produce more gene-manipulated animals in order to contribute to the search for cures to diseases. It is very important that Japan makes a reasonable contribution to this area. Given these issues, we created a consortium composed of three research institutes from three universities (the Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University; the Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo; and the Center for Animal Resources and Development, Kumamoto University). The headquarters are in Kumamoto University. This consortium allows us to share our specialties with each other and aims to produce many gene-manipulated animals for the study of human diseases and their treatment. In our center, we are mainly focusing on genes that participate in reproduction, infection and allergy by taking advantage of an existing disease-screening system in our university; this system includes features such as fluorescent-colored sperm and eggs (Figure 1). We aim to use these gene-manipulated animals to perform the translational research that will eventually lead to new therapeutic systems and the discovery of new drugs.
Figure 1. Strategy for elucidating sterility