Future Activities:

As stated in the Banbury report , a comprehensive catalog of ES cells with a null mutation for every gene in the mouse genome would provide the floor upon which additional analyses and experimentation could be done. One of the advantages of KOMP is that the remaining genes would be knocked out in a relatively uniform way, thus facilitating downstream phenotyping in a universal fashion. The uniform molecular biology that would underlie the KOMP mutagenesis strategy would support comparative phenotyping studies, which are at present difficult to perform because each mutant has it's own set of unique molecular variables. The downstream phenotyping events would be comprised of separate tiers:

Tier 1: After generating the ES cells or embryos, mice would be made and run through a broad spectrum of phenotype analyses, such as tissue expression profiling for the mutated gene.

Tier 2: A subset of these animals would then be chosen for further in-depth studies which would include transcriptome analysis and system-specific phenotyping. This would be funded by individual NIH Institutes and Centers according to their own interests and scientific priorities.

Tier 3: Specialized phenotpying would be done in a smaller number of lines which have previously displayed particularly interesting phenotypes. This would also be funded by individual NIH institutes in accordance with their own scientific priorities.