Model for von Hippel-Lindau disease

Abstract

Disclosed herein are nucleic acid molecules that can be used to effect a loss of function of the von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) allele in somatic and/or germ cells of a mammal and methods for using these molecules to create conditional VHL gene targeted and conditional VHL knockout animals. Disclosed herein are conditional VHL gene target vectors which, when inserted into an endogenous VHL gene, can result in deletion of an exon of a VHL gene by site-specific recombinaton when a recombinase is expressed conditionally.

We claim:  
     
       1. A nucleic acid molecule comprising: 
       a first, second, and third Lox-P site,  
       a neomycin resistance cassette flanked by the first and the second Lox-P sites, and  
       exons  2  and  3  of a VHL gene flanked by the second and the third Lox-P sites.