Figure 1.

Generation of mice to study Kiss1- and Tac2-expressing neurons and coexpression of ERα and eYFP in Tac2^eYFP and Kiss1^eYFP female mice. Tac2^cre mice carry an IRES-cre cassette in the 3′-UTR of the endogenous murine Tac2 gene (A). Kiss1^cre mice carry the same IRES-cre cassette in the 3′-UTR of the murine Kiss1 gene (B). Both cre lines were crossed to ROSA26-eYFP and Esr1-flox animals to generate fluorescent reporter and neuron-specific ERα deletion strains (shown for Tac2^cre). eYFP- and ERα-IR (pseudocolored green and purple, respectively) in the ARC (C) and the AVPV (D) of a Kiss1^eYFP mouse and in the ARC (E) and AVPV (F) of a Tac2^eYFP mouse. eYFP- and ERα-IR (pseudocolored green and purple, respectively) in the ARC (G) and the AVPV (H) of a Kiss1^eYFP/ERα^Kiss1KO mouse and in the ARC (I) and AVPV (J) of a Tac2^eYFP/ERα^Tac2KO mouse. Neurons expressing both eYFP and ERα appear white. 3V, third ventricle; ME, median eminence. K, Counts of Tac2 and Kiss1 neurons in Tac2^eYFP and Kiss1^eYFP female mice in the indicated brain regions (black bars) and numbers of Tac2 and Kiss1 neurons colocalized with ERα (gray bars). L, Data from K plotted to show % Tac2 and Kiss1 neurons colocalizing with ERα in each region. Mean ± SEM is plotted (from a 1:4 series through the brains of n = 3 animals per genotype).