Snapshots in Neuroscience: Mouse dorsal horn

These images have been selected to showcase the art that neuroscience research can create.

As described by the authors: “Here we showcase a 20 µm thick transverse section of the cervical spinal cord within our newly developed HB9-tTA mouse model, stained in red for calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) to outline the first and second (outer) laminar layers. The green puncta originate from the endogenous GFP signal expressed via the HB9-tTA insertion in conjunction with a tetO-GFP reporter, showcasing the construct's expression pattern within neurons of the spinal cord dorsal horn.

“In our paper, we delve into the serendipitous generation of this model in detail. As described further within the publication, these mice contain an HB9-tTA construct that, when coupled with a tetO response element, will drive targeted gene expression in an inducible manner within neurons of the spinal cord dorsal horn. It is our hope that these mice can serve as the experimental basis for future research regarding diseases relevant to this region.”

Transverse section of an HB9-tTA cervical spinal cord dorsal horn. Red corresponds to the laminar layer marker calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP). Green corresponds to the endogenous GFP signal produced within neurons from a HB9-tTA;tetO-GFP construct. The image was captured using a 20x objective on a laser scanning confocal microscope (Carl Zeiss LSM 800). Image credit: Eric Fyrberg.

Read the full article:

New Mouse Lines That Drive Tetracycline-Controlled Gene Expression in a Small Subset of Spinal Cord Dorsal Horn Neurons
Eric Fyrberg, Heather Learnard, Soojin Lee, Yong-Woo Jun, and Fen-Biao Gao