Lead researcher
Dr Michael Gantier
Main finding
In this work we observed a strong protection of the genetically modified mouse line we were studying against infection by a common type of bacteria causing food poisoning (Salmonella). While attempting to understand the mechanism at play, we discovered that immune cells from these mice exhibited a mutation which should not have been there. Since this mutation had been shown to play a critical role in responses to Salmonella infection, we performed experiments to tease apart the effect from our gene versus that of this unwanted mutation. For this purpose, we relied on gene editing of immune cell lines, in vitro. Our findings indicate that our gene of interest does not contribute to Salmonella infection, and illustrate how gene editing of cell lines can complement experiments relying on genetically modified animals.
Centre
Centre for Innate Immunity & Infectious Diseases
Research group
Nucleic Acids and Innate Immunity
Journal and article title
Most surprising
We discovered that the genetically modified mouse line we were using contained a "background" mutation, originating from the way the mice were generated - which was accountable for the protection against Salmonella infection we originally observed.
Future implications
This works underlines the importance of using various complementary approaches to study gene function in infection models, to avoid results misinterpretation.
With several simple approaches now available to study gene function (e.g. gene editing, RNA interference, or antisense), it should now become standard practice to confirm results from older animal genetic models with in vitro assays to rule out potential mutations introduced when generating the animals (which are most often not accounted for by researchers).
Disease/health impact
Bacterial infection
