Design of expression cassettes for the generation of transgenic animals (including insulators).

The use of transgenesis is relatively rare in rats, and this is because of the relative difficulty in adding foreign genes by the conventional methods. Gene knock out and knock in by the conventional techniques of homologous recombination remain difficult in rats. This situation would be less crucial if the gene constructs were more reliable for the expression of foreign genes. The present chapter describes the state of the art in vector design for various genetic modifications in rats.