Gene knockout
A gene knockout is a deletion mutation where part of a gene is missing, making the wildtype nonfunctional. Gene knockout is a technique often used when producing transgenic animals to study the function of specific genes, as loss of a certian funtion in the transgenic animal can give important information about the function of the gene that has been knocked out. Gene knockout is a potent and irreversible means to inactivate a gene[1]. Gene knockout is also often used to produce transgenic mice with knockouts of homologs of genes associated with human disease that act as models for humans diseases[2].