New models of lymphoma in transgenic mice

We are in a ‘golden age’ of mouse genetics. Genetic engineering and micromanipulation techniques now allow not only the overexpression or misexpression of transgenes randomly inserted into the mouse genome, but also the directed homologous replacement of normal genes with transgenes coding for null or mutant alleles (gene ‘knockouts’). Both of these approaches have been used in the past 1–2 years to illuminate the contributions of novel oncogenes and of anti-oncogenes to the molecular basis of lymphomagenesis.