DA neuron-specific gene recombination mediated by the DATcre mouse model
(A) Expression of the TdTomato reporter gene in DA neurons.
(B–E) mediated by DAT promoter-driven IRES-cre in the DATcre-TdTomato reporter line.
(F and G) tdTomato expression is also observed in striatal DA neuron axons colocalizing with TH expression. Scale bar = 100um.
(H) Generation of DA neuron-specific Shh conditional knockout mice (DATcre-shh cKO mice) using the same DAT promoter-driven cre line but crossed with Shh floxed mice.
(I) deletion of Shh exon 2 confirmed by the detection of recombined delta band using primers flanking outside of the two loxP sites. Note that the recombined delta band is only present in DATcre-shh cKO mouse tissue in the SN and OB as expected and is absent in WT tissue. Representative results from at least 3 mice from each phenotype (at the age of 3 months). Scale bar = 100μm.