Visualizing estrogen receptor-α-expressing neurons using a new ERα-ZsGreen reporter mouse line

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• 作者：Kenji Saito^a ; ¹ ; Yanlin He^a ; ¹ ; Xiaofeng Yan^a ; Yongjie Yang^a ; Chunmei Wang^a ; Pingwen Xu^a ; Antentor Othrell Hinton Jr^a ; Gang Shu^a ; Likai Yu^a ; Qingchun Tong^c ; Yong Xu^a ; ^b ; ^{yongx@bcm.edu" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author}
• 关键词：Transgenic mouse ; Brain ; Estrogen receptor-α ; Electrophysiology
• 刊名：Metabolism
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：April 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：65
• 期：4
• 页码：522-532
• 全文大小：1306 K

文摘

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.

Results and conclusions

Here we generated a novel ERα-ZsGreen reporter mouse line in which expression of a green fluorescent reporter protein, ZsGreen, is driven by a 241 kb 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.