| First Author | Habart D | Year | 2013 |
| Journal | PLoS One | Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 1 | Pages | e55094 |
| PubMed ID | 23359821 | Mgi Jnum | J:195799 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:5485305 | Doi | 10.1371/journal.pone.0055094 |
| Citation | Habart D, et al. (2013) Conditional knockout of integrin alpha2beta1 in murine megakaryocytes leads to reduced mean platelet volume. PLoS One 8(1):e55094 |
| abstractText | We have engineered a transgenic mouse on a C57BL/6 background that bears a floxed Itga2 gene. The crossing of this mouse strain to transgenic mice expressing Cre recombinase driven by the megakaryocyte (MK)-specific Pf4 promoter permits the conditional knockout of Itga2 in the MK/platelet lineage. Mice lacking MK alpha2beta1 develop normally, are fertile, and like their systemic alpha2beta1 knockout counterparts, exhibit defective adhesion to and aggregation induced by soluble type I collagen and a delayed onset to low dose fibrillar collagen-induced aggregation, results consistent with blockade or loss of platelet alpha2beta1. At the same time, we observed a significant reduction in mean platelet volume, which is consistent with the reported role of alpha2beta1 in MK maturation and proplatelet formation in vivo. This transgenic mouse strain bearing a floxed Itga2 gene will prove valuable to distinguish in vivo the temporal and spatial contributions of alpha2 integrin in selected cell types. |
