On January 3rd, 2017, Genentech (San Francisco, USA) and Cergentis (Utrecht, The Netherlands) published a paper entitled: "Efficient mapping of transgene integration sites and local structural changes in Cre transgenic mice using targeted locus amplification".

The paper, published in Nucleic Acids Research, describes the TLA-based analysis of 7 widely used transgenic Cre mouse lines. The Targeted Locus Amplification (TLA) technology was used to map the integration sites of the transgenes.

In all lines, structural variation was identified as a result of the integration event. For each of the lines, the exact position of the integration site(s), as well as the breakpoint sequence between the mouse genome and the integrated transgene was detected.

The paper describes how identified breakpoint sequences can be used for the design of PCR tests to assess the zygosity of the animals.