A Noninvasive Genetic/Pharmacologic Strategy for Visualizing Cell Morphology and Clonal Relationships in the Mouse
Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: Analysis of cellular morphology is the most general approach to neuronal classification. With the increased use of genetically engineered mice, there is a growing need for methods that can selectively visualize the morphologies of specified subsets of neurons. This capability is needed both to define cell morphologic phenotypes and to mark cells in a noninvasive manner for lineage studies. To this end, we describe a bipartite genetic system based on a Cre-estrogen receptor (ER) fusion protein that irreversibly activates a plasma membrane-bound alkaline phosphatase reporter gene by site-specific recombination. Because the efficiency and timing of gene rearrangement is controlled pharmacologically, a sparse subset of labeled cells can be generated from the set of CreER-expressing cells at any time during development. Histochemical visualization of alkaline phosphatase activity reveals neuronal morphology with strong and uniform labeling of all processes.
Source: Journal of Neuroscience
Authors: Tudor C. Badea, Yanshu Wang, Jeremy Nathans
Language: English
Subfield: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1538926863