Cortical Excitatory Neurons and Glia, But Not GABAergic Neurons, Are Produced in the Emx1-Expressing Lineage
- Jessica A. Gorski1,
- Tiffany Talley1,
- Mengsheng Qiu3,
- Luis Puelles4,
- John L. R. Rubenstein2, and
- Kevin R. Jones1
- 1Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309,
- 2Department of Psychiatry, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143-0984,
- 3Department of Anatomical Sciences and Neurobiology, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky 40241, and
- 4Department of Morphological Sciences, Medical School, University of Murcia, E30100 Murcia, Spain
Abstract
By homologous recombination of an internal ribosome entry site and Cre recombinase coding region into the 3′-untranslated region of the mouse Emx1 gene, we have generated a strain of mice, Emx1IREScre, that expresses the Cre recombinase in a spatial and temporal pattern like that observed for Emx1. When mated to reporter strains, these mice are a sensitive means to fate-map the Emx1-expressing cells of the developing forebrain. Our results demonstrate that radial glia, Cajal-Retzius cells, glutamatergic neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes of most pallial structures originate from an Emx1-expressing lineage. On the other hand, most of the pallial GABAergic neurons arise outside the Emx1-expressing lineage. Structures that are located near the basal ganglia (e.g., the amygdala and endopiriform nuclei) are not uniformly derived from Emx1-expressing cells.
- Received January 29, 2002.
- Revision received April 8, 2002.
- Accepted April 15, 2002.
- Copyright © 2002 Society for Neuroscience
