Table 2.

Transgenic (Tg) mouse lines for specifically targeting mouse astrocytes.

Tg mouse lines	Brain regions studied	Specificity	References
Mlc1-tTA & TetO-ChR2(C128S)-YFP	Cerebellum	Light-evoked current in the Bergmann glia	Sasaki et al., 2012; Tanaka et al., 2012
hGFAP-CreERT2 & Mecp2+/Stop	Whole brain	<5% expression in neurons	Lioy et al., 2011
hGFAP-tTA & tetO-MrgA1-GFP	Hippocampus	Labels GFAP(+) cells	Fiacco et al., 2007; Agulhon et al., 2010
S100β-YC3.60 cameleon	Whole brain	Labels astrocytes, NG2 cells and oligodendrocytes	Atkin et al., 2009
S100β-Cre & Cx43(fl/fl)	Cerebellum	Specific Cx43 deletion in Bergmann glia and molecular layer astrocytes	Tanaka et al., 2008
hGFAP-CreERT2 hGFAP-MerCreMer	Hippocampus Cortex Cerebellum	Specific recombination in cortical astrocytes and Bergmann glia in hGFAP-CreERT2 and hGFAP-MerCreMer lines	Casper et al., 2007
GLAST-CreERT2 Cx30-CreERT2 ApoE-CreERT2 AQ4-CreERT2	Whole brain	Specific labeling of GFAP- and S100β-positive astrocytes in cortex, hippocampal CA1 region and cerebellum in Cx30-CreERT2 and GLAST-CreERT2 lines. Density of labeled astrocytes is higher in Cx30-CreERT2 line. ApoE-CreERT2 and AQ4-CreERT2 lines do not label specifically the astrocytes.	Slezak et al., 2007
GLAST-CreERT2	Cortex Hippocampus Cerebellum	Tamoxifen injection in adult mice induce specific labeling of S100β-positive astrocytes in cortex; olfactory bulb, dentate gyrus and cerebellum. Adult-born doublecortin-positive neurons were labeled. Tamoxifen injection at E18 induces recombination both in neurons and astrocytes	Mori et al., 2006
human or mouse GFAP-Cre	Whole brain	Recombination occurs both in astrocytes and neurons	Casper and McCarthy, 2006
hGFAP-CreERT2	Whole brain	Recombination is specific in GFAP- and S100β-positive astrocytes in hippocampus and cerebellum. Recombination is weak in cortex.	Hirrlinger et al., 2006