Abstract
Gene inactivation reporters are powerful tools to circumvent limitations of the widely used Cre/loxP system of conditional mutagenesis. With new conditional transgenic mouse lines expressing the enhanced cyan fluorescent protein (ECFP) instead of connexin43 (Cx43) after Cre-mediated recombination, we demonstrate dual reporter approaches to simultaneously examine astrocyte subpopulations expressing different connexins, identify compensatory up-regulation within gene families, and quantify Cre-mediated deletion at the allelic level. Analysis of a newly generated Cx43 knock-in ECFP mouse revealed an unexpected heterogeneity of Cx43-expressing astrocytes across brain areas.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 4576-4583 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | FASEB Journal |
Volume | 26 |
Issue number | 11 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 2012 |
Keywords
- Conditional knock-in
- Connexin
- GFAP
- Gap junctions
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biotechnology
- Biochemistry
- Molecular Biology
- Genetics