Figure 1.

Generation of TSPO conditional knockout mice. A, Schematic showing recombination stages. Exons 2 and 3 were flanked with LoxP sites (open arrowheads), using a vector that also carries a neomycin resistance (neoR) selectable marker flanked by Frt sites (vertical double-headed black arrows). Correctly recombined embryonic stem cell (ESC) clones were used to generate mice through blastocyst injections. Germline transmitting TSPO-targeted mice were crossed with ubiquitous Flpe-expressing mice to remove neoR cassette. TSPOfl/fl mice were bred with Amhr2cre/+ knock-in mice, resulting in the deletion of exons 2 and 3 in target cells. Genotyping primers are indicated as P1, P2, and P3. B, Long-range PCR for selecting ES cell clones. Six correctly targeted clones were identified (N, negative control; P, positive control). C, Specific DNA primers (P1, P2, and P3) were used to genotype and identify the floxed and wild-type alleles in TSPO-targeted mice.