Body weight regulation is mediated through several major signaling pathways, some of which have been delineated by positional cloning of spontaneous genetic mutations in mice.
Leprdb/db mice are obese due to a defect in the signaling portion of the leptin receptor, which has led to extensive study of this highly conserved system over the past several years. We have created an allelic series at
Lepr for the further examination of LEPR signaling phenotypes using both the FLP
/frt and CRE
/loxP systems. By inserting a
frt-PGK-neo-frt sequence in
Lepr intron 16, we have generated a conditional gene repair
Lepr allele (
Lepr-neo) that elicits morbid obesity, diabetes, and infertility in homozygous mice, recapitulating the obesity syndrome of
Leprdb/db mice. Thus,
in vivo excision of the PGK-neo cassette with a FLP recombinase transgene restores the lean and fertile phenotype to
Leprflox/flox mice. In the same construct, we have also inserted
loxP sites that flank
Lepr coding exon 17, a region that encodes a JAK docking site required for STAT3 signaling. CRE-mediated excision of
Lepr coding exon 17 from
Lepr with a frameshift in subsequent exons results in a syndrome of obesity, diabetes, and infertility in
Lepr
17/
17 mice, which is indistinguishable from
Leprneo/neo and
Leprdb/db mice. We conclude that suppression of
Lepr gene expression by
PGK-neo is phenotypically equivalent to deletion of the
Lepr signaling motifs, and therefore the
Leprneo/neo mouse may be used to investigate conditional gene repair of
Lepr signaling deficiency.