Figure 2. Recombination in OxtrCre BAC transgenic mice is accurately targeted to a subpopulation of Sst expressing cortical interneurons.
(A) Immunofluorescence image showing EGFP-L10a expressing OxtrCre positive neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). The right panel is a higher magnification image of the area indicated by the box in the left panel. (B) Stellate morphology of ChR2-mCherry expressing OxtrCre neurons in mPFC. (C) Immunofluorescence for EGFP (Green) and in situ hybridization (ISH) or immunofluorescence images (Red) for known interneuron markers (scale bar = 100 µm). The EGFP signal overlapped with the Gad1/Sst ISH signal, but rarely with Vip ISH or Pvalb IF signal. Bar graphs showing quantitation of these results (n=4): the majority of EGFP positive cells (left panel) are positive for Gad1 (81.8%) and Sst (81.3%), but do not express Pvalb (4.9%) or Vip (0.7%); EGFP positive cells constitute only a small fraction of the total interneuron population Gad1 (3.4%) or of the Sst (9.5%) positive subpopulation of interneurons (right panel).