. The second hydroxylation is catalyzed by the 25-hydroxyvitamin D 3 -1␣-hydroxylase (1␣-hydroxylase), a mitochondrial cytochrome P450 enzyme that is the product of the CYP27B1 gene (2-6). Activity of 1␣-hydroxylase is tightly regulated through complex mechanisms that depend on the circulating levels of calcium, phosphorus, parathyroid hormone, and 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 .Mutations in the 1␣-hydroxylase gene are known to cause vitamin D-dependency rickets type I (VDDR-I) (2, 7-9). Patients afflicted with this disease are unable to maintain normal serum calcium and suffer from secondary hyperparathyroidism, rickets, and osteomalacia (10). VDDR-I is cured by administration of physiological doses of 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 (11). Physiological doses of 25-OH-D 3 are noncurative, but high dose administration can be effective (11), presumably due to the ability of 25-OH-D 3 to bind and activate the vitamin D receptor when present in vast excess.The experiments reported by Fraser and Kodicek in 1970 (12) were the first to demonstrate the kidney as the major, if not the only, tissue in which 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 is produced under normal physiological conditions. Over the next several years, extrarenal production of 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 was convincingly demonstrated in pregnant nephrectomized rats and in an anephric patient suffering from sarcoidosis (13-15). In these cases, synthesis was localized to the placenta and the sarcoid macrophages (14,16,17). Production of 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 at other sites has remained a subject of much investigation. A number of research groups have reported 1␣-hydroxylase activity in cultured cells, including those of the skin, bone, cartilage, intestine, prostate, and vascular epithelium (18 -25). Bikle et al. (26) have also reported 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 production in perfused flaps of porcine skin. Local production of 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 has been proposed to regulate cellular function and͞or differentiation in an autocrine or paracrine fashion (18,19,24,27,28), and it has been suggested that keratinocytes could supply 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 to the systemic circulation when renal production of the hormone is impaired (26,29). Production of extrarenal 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 in these experiments is not supported, however, by in vivo metabolic studies in nephrectomized nonpregnant rats. In these studies, two independent research groups were unable to detect 3 H-1,25(OH) 2 D 3 in the tissue or plasma after administering a dose of 3 H-25-OH-D 3 of high specific radioactivity (30,31). These conflicting results demonstrate a need for further investigation of the in vivo expression of the 1␣-hydroxylase. We have approached such an investigation by using gene targeting to replace the 1␣-hydroxylase coding sequence with a bacterial lacZ gene controlled by the 1␣-hydroxylase promoter. The lacZ gene codes for -galactosidase, whose activity is readily detected in situ through histochemical staining with X-Gal (32). Herein we report the successful production of 1␣-hydroxylase null mice harboring the lacZ gene and present our analysis of in vivo 1␣-hydroxylase...