ABSTRACT
The tight-skin mouse mutation arose spontaneously on the B10.D2 (58N) Sn strain in 1967 at the Jackson Laboratory. Tight-skin is a semidominant mutation that has been mapped to Chromosome 2. The tight-skin mouse mutation is used primarily as an animal model to investigate the biochemical mechanisms of human scleroderma, genetically determined emphysema, and myocardial fibrosis. The granulated metrial gland cells normally are not found after 6.5 days of gestation in the antimesometrial and lateral decidual regions and in the regions between implantation sites. Immunologic manipulation of rats (induction of tolerance, followed 4 months later by challenge with lymphoid cells) also results in a scleroderma-like disease. The tight-skin mutation is maintained by the Jackson Laboratory Genetic Resource. Embryos are preserved in the Jackson Laboratory Frozen Embryo Bank, and DNA extracts are available from the Mouse DNA Resource at the Jackson Laboratory.
