Sequencing of two mice from a knockout mouse programme which display deafness and vestibular defects unlinked to the targeted allele.. Collateral Damage

Mice carrying targeted mutations are important for investigating gene function and the role of genes in disease, but the process of culturing embryonic stem cells during the making of a targeted allele offers opportunities for off-target mutations to arise. The observation of off-target mutations relies on the identification of phenotypes segregating independently of targeted alleles, and many phenotypes are easy to miss if they are not specifically looked for. This study is part of a larger project which involved sequencing of multiple mice bearing off-target or spontaneous mutations affecting hearing, most of which were sequenced at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre. These datafiles are from the same project but the samples were sequenced separately, at a later date.