Inducible gene inactivation in neurons of the adult mouse forebrain

Background  

The analysis of the role of genes in important brain functions like learning, memory and synaptic plasticity requires gene inactivation at the adult stage to exclude developmental effects, adaptive changes or even lethality. In order to achieve temporally controlled somatic mutagenesis, the Cre/loxP-recombination system has been complemented with the tamoxifen-inducible fusion protein consisting of Cre recombinase and the mutated ligand binding domain of the human estrogen receptor (CreER^T2). To induce recombination of conditional alleles in neurons of the adult forebrain, we generated a bacterial artificial chromosome-derived transgene expressing the CreER^T2 fusion protein under control of the regulatory elements of the CaMKIIα gene (CaMKCreER^T2 transgene).