ABSTRACT
Transgenic domestic animals have been developed in order to increase the quality and the yield of their economically exploited products. In addition, it is possible to express transgenes in the mammary gland of these animals, leading to the secretion of pharmaceutically interesting proteins in considerable amounts in the milk. The offspring is analyzed for the integration of the transgene by isolating the genomic DNA of somatic cells, e.g., from the tails of the animals and detecting the introduced gene by Southern blotting or polymerase chain reaction using transgene-specific probes or oligonucleotide primers, respectively. Transgenic animals allow the analysis of effects of a single additional gene on the physiology of an organism. The chapter focuses on transgenic animals harboring renin genes of mice, rat, and humans which were produced to study the regulation of these genes and the effects of their overexpression in an animal.
