Figure 3.

Differential tropism of ΔL rabies virus, rAAV2-retro, and CAV-2

RVΔL-Cre, rAAV2-retro-hSyn-Cre (from Addgene), or CAV-Cre (from the Plateforme de Vectorologie de Montpellier) was injected undiluted into the cortical anterior cingulate area (ACA) of reporter mice, with injections being of equal volumes (200 μL); after a 4 week survival time, brain sections were imaged, and labeled neurons in three brain regions were counted. Note that each data point is the total number in one series consisting of every sixth 50 μm section from a given brain (see STAR Methods) so that the total number of labeled neurons in the given region of each brain would be approximately six times the corresponding number shown here.

(A) In hippocampus, more neurons were labeled by RVΔL-Cre than by either of the other viruses, although the difference with rAAV2-retro was not quite statistically significant (single-factor ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparison test, p = 0.05345). CAV-Cre labeled almost no hippocampal cells.

(B) In basolateral amygdala, RVΔL labeled more cells than CAV-2 but fewer cells than rAAV2-retro.

(C) In ipsilateral primary motor cortex, RVΔL labeled significantly more cells overall, and significantly more cells in individual layers 2/3, 5, and 6, than either of the other two viruses. RVΔL labeled 2.46 times as many cells as rAAV2-retro and 3.14 times as many cells as CAV-2 (means of 2,661, 1,080, and 846.25 cells, respectively; again note that each count is of labeled neurons found in a series containing every sixth 50 μm section [see STAR Methods]). See Figure S4 for results from similar experiments with the injections in the anteromedial visual area; see also Data S2, S3, S4, S5, S6, and S7 for sets of high-resolution confocal images of series of coronal sections from mice labeled with each of the three viruses for each of the two injection sites. See Data S1 for all counts and statistical comparisons.