Abstract
Transgenic mice expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) under the control of human glial fibrillary acidic protein promoter (hGFAP) have been utilized for in vivo labeling of astrocytes. Although it has been considered that virtually all astrocytes express GFP in this transgenic mouse, we found that different subsets of GFAP-expressing astrocytes express considerably different levels of GFP in the adult brain. Astrocytes in the spinal cord, the molecular layer of thecerebellum, meninges, white matter, corpus callosum and blood vessels exhibited strong GFP, whereas subsets of astrocytes associated with granule cells in the cerebellum and dentate gyrus did not or only marginally exhibited GFP. We also found that a small subset of GFP-expressing cells in the periglomeruli of the olfactory bulb did not express GFAP immunoreactivity. Collectively, these results suggest that human GFAP promoter-derived GFP expression does not faithfully recapitulate the endogenous GFAP expression in mice, suggesting that upstream regulatory mechanisms controlling GFAP transcription are different in different populations of astrocytes, and may reflect the functional diversity of astrocytes.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 268-273 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Animal Cells and Systems |
Volume | 15 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2011 Dec |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work is supported by a grant from the Korean Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology via the Brain Re- search Center of the 21st Century Frontier Program in Neuroscience (2010K000803) and National Research Foundation of Korea (20100020237).
Keywords
- GFAP expression
- GFP
- astrocyte
- granule cell
- transgenic mice
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Animal Science and Zoology
- General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology