A mouse model of rhabdomyosarcoma originating from the adipocyte lineage. Mus musculus

Activation of Sonic Hedgehog signaling through expression of a constitutively active Smoothened allele under control of an aP2 adipocyte-restricted transgene in mice gives rise to aggressive skeletal muscle tumors that display the histologic and molecular characteristics of human embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma with high penetrance. Overall design: Conditional mouse models of embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma were created by activation of the oncogenic SmoM2 allele by both the non-muscle aP2-Cre or myotube Myogenin-Cre.