Albumin-Deficient Rat: Nagase Analbuminemia Rat (NAR)

Abstract

In 1979, we established an analbuminemic rat mutant strain (Nagase Analbuminemia Rat; NAR) from Sprague-Dawley rats. Using NARs, a number of important findings were obtained. This paper is focused on the genetic analysis, mapping of genes, and the structural analysis of albumin gene in NAR.
Analbuminemia in NAR is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait (designated alb) . The albumin gene is mapped tandem to hooded (h), Vitamin D-binding protein (Gc), and Alb loci in VI linkage group of chromosome 14, h-Gc; 15.5 ± 1.0%, h-Alb; 15.8 ± 1.0%, and Gc-Alb; 0.32 ± 0.16%, respectively. The alb gene has a seven-base-pair deletion in HI intron. This mutation blocks albumin mRNA splicing in NAR liver. NAR might be the most useful model for the understanding mechanism of splicing in a high animal species.