Top of pageRESULTSTargeting of the murine Pkhd1 geneWe targeted exon 2 of the mouse Pkhd1 gene with a conventional LoxP flanked phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) neomycin cassette (Figure 1a) and screened by Southern blotting (Figure 1b). Mice were derived from three separate embryonic stem cell clones to generate Pkhd1neo2 animals and these were in turn crossed to mouse mammary tumor virusCre animals to allow for the germline removal of the PGK neomycin cassette yielding the Pkhd1del2 allele.21 Wild type (WT), Pkhd1neo2, and Pkhd1del2 were easily distinguished by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (Figure 1b). 5' RACE and directed reverse transcriptionPCR showed that there was a transcript produced from the mutant allele, which skips exon 2 using the splice donor of exon 1 and the splice acceptor of exon 3 in both Pkhd1neo2 and Pkhd1del2 homozygous mice (Figure 1c).I felt like this was a chance to become part of something special, that it was the best fit for me, and would give me the be