The Arrival of ‘knockout’ Rats

The Arrival of ‘knockout’ Rats

‘Knockout’ technology is a valuable tool in identifying causative genes resulting in disease states. Over the last three decades, it has only been possible to use the mouse for this purpose, owing to the non-responsiveness of rat embryonic stem cells (ESCs) to the culture conditions that were successfully used to construct ‘knockout’ mice. But during the last few years, this situation has changed and successful novel approaches for the construction of ‘knockout’ rats have brought the rat back centre stage.