Figure 1: Establishment of glia- and neuron-specific TrkB conditional KO mice.
From: Glia- and neuron-specific functions of TrkB signalling during retinal degeneration and regeneration
(a) Schematic diagram of transgenically targeted fate-mapping strategy. GFAP-Cre and c-kit-Cre mice were crossed with Rosa26-LacZ reporter mice. In Cre reporter offspring, only cells that express Cre excise a loxP-flanked stop signal and activate constitutive LacZ expression. Blue colour depicts LacZ-positive cells. (b) X-gal staining (blue) and immunostaining (red) of β-gal-positive cells. Glutamine synthetase (GS), calretinin, calbindin, protein kinase C (PKC) and TUJ1 were used as cell type-specific markers (green). Overlapping immunoreactivities (yellow) of β-gal and GS, calretinin or TUJ1 indicate that Cre-mediated recombination occurs in Müller glial cells in GFAP-Cre LacZ mice, and RGCs (arrows) and amacrine cells (arrowheads) in c-kit-Cre LacZ mice. (c) Immunohistochemical analysis of TrkB (green) and GS (red) showed loss of TrkB from Müller glial cells (arrowheads) in TrkBGFAP KO mice. (d) Immunohistochemical analysis of TrkB (green) and calretinin (red) showed loss of TrkB from RGCs (arrowheads) and amacrine cells (arrows) in TrkBc-kit KO mice. Scale bar, 100 μm. GCL, ganglion cell layer; INL, inner nuclear layer; RGC, retinal ganglion cell.
