The mammalian gene function resource: the International Knockout Mouse Consortium.

In 2007, the International Knockout Mouse Consortium (IKMC) made the ambitious promise to generate mutations in virtually every protein-coding gene of the mouse genome in a concerted worldwide action. Now, 5 years later, the IKMC members have developed high-throughput gene trapping and, in particular, gene-targeting pipelines and generated more than 17,400 mutant murine embryonic stem (ES) cell clones and more than 1,700 mutant mouse strains, most of them conditional. A common IKMC web portal (www.

Smicl is a novel Smad interacting protein and cleavage and polyadenylation specificity factor associated protein.

Ligand-bound receptors of the Transforming Growth Factor-beta (TGF-beta) family promote the formation of complexes between Smad proteins that subsequently accumulate in the nucleus and interact there with other transcriptional regulators, leading to modulation of target gene expression. We identified a novel nuclear protein, Smicl, which binds to Smad proteins. Smicl and Smads cooperate and enhance TGF-beta mediated activation of a Smad-responsive reporter gene.