1. Visualizing estrogen receptor-α-expressing neurons using a new ERα-ZsGreen reporter mouse line
- Author
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Qingchun Tong, Yong Xu, Chunmei Wang, Antentor Othrell Hinton, Gang Shu, Yongjie Yang, Pingwen Xu, Yanlin He, Xiaofeng Yan, Likai Yu, and Kenji Saito
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Genetically modified mouse ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Pro-Opiomelanocortin ,Brain chemistry ,Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism ,Green Fluorescent Proteins ,Energy metabolism ,Estrogen receptor ,Cell Separation ,Biology ,Article ,Cell Line ,Mice ,03 medical and health sciences ,Endocrinology ,Genes, Reporter ,Internal medicine ,medicine ,Cell separation ,Animals ,RNA, Messenger ,Alleles ,Brain Chemistry ,Neurons ,Arcuate Nucleus of Hypothalamus ,Molecular biology ,Electrophysiological Phenomena ,Cell biology ,Mice, Inbred C57BL ,Electrophysiology ,030104 developmental biology ,Receptors, Estrogen ,nervous system ,Cell culture ,Intracellular - Abstract
A variety of biological functions of estrogens, including regulation of energy metabolism, are mediated by neurons expressing estrogen receptor-α (ERα) in the brain. However, complex intracellular processes in these ERα-expressing neurons are difficult to unravel, due to the lack of strategy to visualize ERα-expressing neurons, especially in unfixed brain tissues.Here we generated a novel ERα-ZsGreen reporter mouse line in which expression of a green fluorescent reporter protein, ZsGreen, is driven by a 241kb ERα gene promoter. We validated that ZsGreen is highly colocalized with endogenous ERα in the brain. Native ZsGreen signals were visualized in unfixed brain tissue, and were used to assist single cell collection and electrophysiological recordings. Finally, we demonstrated that this ERα-ZsGreen mouse allele can be used in combination with other genetic reporter alleles to allow experiments in highly selective neural populations.
- Published
- 2016