Spermatocyte-specific transcription by calmodulin gene II promoter in transgenic mice

Transgenic mice carrying a fused gene of the 294-base upstream and 68-base leader sequences of a rat calmodulin gene, CaMII, and β-galactosidase gene were made. Only spermatocytes expressed the transgene mRNA in the testes of four independent transgenic lines. The localization of transgene mRNA was consistent with that of the mouse endogenous CaMII analyzed by in situ hybridization with the probe of 3′-noncoding region of mouse CaMII. Thus, this short promoter of CaMII evidently conferred the expression of transgene only on spermatocytes but not on spermatogonia nor on spermatids of the testis. The rat CaMII promoter up to -294 contained no sequences that corresponded to any of the reported sequence features of genes expressed in the testis. Therefore, this short promoter region of CaMII seemed to carry a certain novel machinery for the spermatocyte-specific gene expression.