Mouse with USP

The multi-system-damaging disorder Cushing's syndrome is either caused by long-term exposure to steroid medicines or due to a tumour in the pituitary gland stimulating excess of the body's own steroids, referred to as Cushing's disease (CD) and commonly initiated by an activating mutation in the USP8 gene. Here, researchers have created a mouse model of CD which bears a human form of this mutated gene and recapitulates a range of abnormalities – such as skeletal, corneal (normal eye outer layer left image; with USP8 mutation right) and cardiac – found in the human disease.

Read the published research article here

Written by Lindsey Goff

Lindsey Goff

Editor-in-Chief

Formerly immunologist for Cancer Research UK, Lindsey has since moved into the field of scientific publishing. She looks after all BPoD editorial matters.

• Image from work by Tamara González-Costa and colleagues
• Intercellular Signalling in Cardiovascular Development and Disease Laboratory, Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC), Madrid, Spain
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, July 2026