a b s t r a c tGlis3 is a member of the Gli-similar subfamily. GLIS3 mutations in humans lead to neonatal diabetes, hypothyroidism, and cystic kidney disease. We generated Glis3-deficient mice by gene-targeting. The Glis3 À/À mice had significant increases in the basal blood sugar level during the first few days after birth. The high levels of blood sugar are attributed to a decrease in the Insulin mRNA level in the pancreas that is caused by impaired islet development and the subsequent impairment of Insulinproducing cell formation. The pancreatic phenotypes indicate that the Glis3-deficient mice are a model for GLIS3 mutation and diabetes mellitus in humans.

ABSTRACT. Mammalian interferon (IFN)-α consists of a 23-amino acid signal peptide and a 166-amino acid mature protein. Feline (Fe) IFN-α has an extra unique molecule consisting of a 171-amino acid mature protein with a 5-amino acid insertion. We cloned eight new subtypes of cDNA encoding FeIFN-α from a feline epithelial cell line. Among all the FeIFN-α subtypes, including six that have previously been reported, the variations were found to be far less than those of IFN-αs of other animals.

In this study, we developed an efficient gene targeting system for the osmophilic fungus Aspergillus chevalieri, which is commonly used in the production of a dried bonito, katsuobushi. Specifically, we utilized the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/Cas9 system to disrupt the ATP sulfurylase encoding sC gene. This results in methionine auxotroph and selenate-resistance. Additionally, we disrupted the DNA ligase IV encoding ligD gene, which is required for non-homologous end joining. Using the sC marker and selenate-resistance as a selection pressure, we were able to rescue the sC marker and generate a ΔligD ΔsC strain. We determined that the gene targeting efficiency of the ΔligD ΔsC strain was significantly higher than that of the parental ΔsC strain, which indicates that this strain provides efficient genetic recombination for the genetic analysis of A. chevalieri.