In order to investigate the physiological as well as pathological role of MnSOD in the heart and muscle, we generated conditional MnSOD knockout mice using the Cre-loxP system.
We used MCK-Cre transgenic mice for the selective expression of Cre protein in muscle tissues as shown previously. Crossbreeding of homozygous MnSOD flox mice (flox/flox, f/f) with MCK-Cre transgenic mice gave rise to heart/muscle-specific MnSOD-deficient mice (del/del, d/d).