Monitoring for potential adverse effects of prenatal gene therapy: mouse models for developmental aberrations and inadvertent germ line transmission.

So far no systematic studies have been conducted to investigate developmental aberrations after prenatal gene transfer in mice. Here, we suggest procedures for such observations to be applied, tested and improved in further in utero gene therapy experiments. They are based on our own experience in husbandry for transgenic human diseases mouse models and breading, rearing, and observing mice after fetal gene transfer as well as on the systematic screens for monitoring of knock-out mutant mouse phenotypes established in international mutagenesis projects (EUMORPHIA and EUMODIC and subsequently the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium). We also describe here the analysis procedures for detection of germ line mutations based on quantitative PCR (qPCR) by sperm-DNA analysis and breeding studies.