. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2023 May 11.

Published in final edited form as: Nat Cardiovasc Res. 2022 Nov 11;1(11):1084–1100. doi: 10.1038/s44161-022-00162-1

Table 1.

Contrasting characteristics of two SMC Cre drivers

Itga8-CreER^T2	Myh11-CreER^T2
Single-copy knock-in on Chr 2	Two-copy transgene on Chr Y
Chromosome stability	Exhibits t(Y;X) in ~ 3% of pups
Male and female studies	Male studies only
Lightly codon-optimized Cre	Heavily codon-optimized Cre
Low-level CreER^T2 expression	High-level CreER^T2 expression
More stable transcriptome	Altered transcriptome
Low-level leaky Cre in old mice	High-level leaky Cre in mice
Active preferentially in VSMCs	Equally active in all SMC lineages
Evades visceral myopathies	Causes many visceral myopathies
Active in mesangial, stellate, thecal, and myoepithelial cells of kidney, liver, ovary, and mammary gland, respectively	Active in corneal endothelial cells,⁵⁶ interstitial cells of the thymus, and in some stellate cells of liver
Low-level pericyte activity	Active in some pericytes⁵⁸