Transgenic mice, carrying an expressed anti-HIV ribozyme in their genome, show no sign of phenotypic alterations.

Transgenic mice are suitable model animals for testing the in vivo functionality of custom-tailored ribozymes. Transgenic experiments can demonstrate whether a ribozyme is able to cleave any RNA transcript of the host animal or not. Most probably, this kind of cleavage activity gives rise to phenotypic alterations in mice. In the present paper we demonstrate that an anti-HIV ribozyme does not cause any detectable phenotypic effect in mice carrying and expressing it. Our transgenic mice developed well and were indistinguishable from their wild type counterparts.