conditional knockout mice and control littermates and several of these were confirmed by semiquantitative RT–PCR. Besides the stress-inducible metallothionein genes that were already known as target genes of MTF-1, we find that MTF-1 is important for basal liver expression of the gene for selenoprotein W, muscle 1 (Sepw1) as well as for cadmium-induced expression of N-myc downstream regulated gene 1 (Ndrg1) and the gene encoding cysteine- and glycine-rich protein 1 (Csrp1). In addition, MTF-1 appear