otherwise ineffective chemotherapy agent. These results, plus research showing that knockout of Myo10 increased survival time by 260% in a mouse model of melanoma, make Myo10 a potential anti-cancer target. Model organisms Several strains of Myo10 knockout mice have been generated and demonstrate that Myo10 has important functions during development in processes such as neural tube closure, eye development, blood vessel formation, and pigmentation. Approximately ~50% of the mouse embryos that lacked Myo10 failed to close their neural tube during early brain development and exhibited the lethal birth defect of exencephaly. Interestingly, knockout embryos that did not develop exencephaly were able to survive birth, grow to adulthood, and produce offspring, indicating that Myo10 is not essential for adult survival. The Myo10 knockout mice that survived birth had high frequencies of several abnormalities, with ~100% exhibiting a white belly spot, a pigmentation defect associated with decreased ability of melanocyte precursors to migrate. Myo10 KO mice also exhibited the eye defect known as persistent fetal vasculature (PFV) or persistent hyperplastic primary vitreous (PHPV), a condition resulting from the failure of the developing eye’s hyaloid vasculature to regress properly. Myo10 KO mice also exhibited high frequencies of other eye abnormalities such as small eyes (microphthalmia) and lens defects. Myo10 KO mice also averaged ~20% lower in weight than control mice and approximately half had one or more webbed digits (syndactyly). A conditional knockout mouse line called Myo10tm2(KOMP)Wtsi was generated at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. Male and female animals underwent a standardized phenotypic screen of hundreds of characteristics to determine the effects of deletion. Additional screens performed: - In-depth immunological phenotyping References Further reading External links