Similar to TRF2 Δ/Δ -K5-Cre mice, TRF2 Δ/Δ -K5-Cre p53 −/− double mutant were born at submendelian ratios and newborn mice died immediately after birth, indicating occurrence of embryonic lethality (Fig. 3C,D).
Every now and then, mutants are born with weird, often uncontrollable powers.
Inspired by the civil rights movement in America, Lee and Jack Kirby created the X-Men comic universe, a world in which some people, known as mutants, were born with a gene that gave them special abilities but also often made them look different than typical humans.
Homozygote mutants were born in the expected Mendelian ratios and displayed no abnormalities in growth or development.
Because very few runt mutants were born and most of them died soon after birth, all the subsequent analyses were done with non-runt mutants.
In both genotypes, palate shelf elevation fails to occur at E14.5 and all Gad1 and Viaat mutants were born with cleft secondary palates (Fig. 3A-H and data not shown).
As for highly dreaded congenital malformations and popular myths of two-headed animals and children, it should be mentioned that mutants were born before the Chernobyl accident.
A lethal mutant is here defined as a mutant which dies no later than it is born.
The reason for Frizzled6 mice's messy hair soon became obvious: The mutant mice are born with hair follicles that point in random directions, while normal mice have follicles pointing more or less in the direction needed for the hair to lay flat.
Homozygous Cthrc1 mutant mice were born at the expected Mendelian ratio and grew normally in comparison with their wild-type littermates (data not shown).
