Extended Data Fig. 3: Efficiency of somatosensory CSN ablation by P14 intraspinal injection.
From: Touch and tactile neuropathic pain sensitivity are set by corticospinal projections
a, Left, schematic of regional CSN ablation by P14 lumbar (T13–L6) intraspinal injection. Right, representative image (n = 8 animals with similar results) of the cortex with GFP+ areas covering hindlimb S1/S2. b, Representative images (n = 6 animals with similar results) of cortical sections showing hindlimb CSNs retrogradely labelled by lumbar (T13–L6) intraspinal injection of HiRet-GFP at P14. Scale bar, 100 μm. c, To assess ablation efficiency, at the end point, retrograde-targeting rAAV-mCherry was injected into the lumbar spinal cord in some animals. Representative images of cortical sections showing retrogradely labelled mCherry+ CSNs (left) within the GFP+ cortical areas (right) (S1/S2) in control or AAV-FLEX-DTR injected animals with quantification (normalized to those in controls as 100). **P < 0.01 (P < 0.0001), two-sided Student’s t-test. n = 5 and 5 for control and AAV-FLEX-DTR injected mice, respectively. Scale bar, 100 μm. d, Representative images of transverse lumbar spinal cord sections showing residual CST axons labelled by GFP (from mice co-injected with AAV-GFP to S1/S2 and AAV-FLEX-DTR) in control or S1/S2 CSN ablated animals with quantification. **P < 0.01 (P < 0.0001), two-sided Student’s t-test. n = 7 or 8 for control or AAV-FLEX-DTR-injected mice, respectively. Scale bar, 500 μm. Data shown as mean ± s.e.m.
