New Transgenic Mouse Lines for Selectively Targeting Astrocytes and Studying Calcium Signals in Astrocyte Processes In Situ and InVivo. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Astrocytes exist throughout the nervous system and are proposed to affect neural circuits and behavior. However, studying astrocytes has proven difficult because of the lack of tools permitting astrocyte-selectivegenetic manipulations. Here, we report the generation of Aldh1l1-Cre/ERT2 transgenic mice to selectively target astrocytes invivo. We characterized Aldh1l1-Cre/ERT2 mice using imaging, immunohistochemistry, AAV-FLEX-GFP microinjections, and crosses to RiboTag, Ai95, and new Cre-dependent membrane-tethered Lck-GCaMP6f knockin mice that we also generated. Two to three weeks after tamoxifen induction, Aldh1l1-Cre/ERT2 selectively targeted essentially all adult (P80) brain astrocytes with no detectable neuronal contamination, resulting in expression of cytosolic and Lck-GCaMP6f, and permitting subcellular astrocyte calcium imaging during startle responses invivo. Crosses with RiboTag mice allowed sequencing of actively translated mRNAs and determination of the adult cortical astrocyte transcriptome. Thus, we provide well-characterized, easy-to-use resources with which to selectively study astrocytes insitu and invivo in multiple experimental scenarios.

published proceedings

  • Neuron

altmetric score

  • 33.822

author list (cited authors)

  • Srinivasan, R., Lu, T., Chai, H., Xu, J. i., Huang, B. S., Golshani, P., Coppola, G., & Khakh, B. S.

citation count

  • 232

complete list of authors

  • Srinivasan, Rahul||Lu, Tsai-Yi||Chai, Hua||Xu, Ji||Huang, Ben S||Golshani, Peyman||Coppola, Giovanni||Khakh, Baljit S

publication date

  • January 2016

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