Abstract
Advances in genetic technologies enable the highly selective expression of transgenes in targeted neuronal cell types. Transgene expression can be used to noninvasively ablate, silence or activate neurons, providing a tool to probe their contribution to the control of behavior or physiology. Here, we describe the use of the tetrodotoxin (TTX)-resistant voltage-gated sodium channel Nav1.5 for either sensitizing neurons to depolarizing input, or isolating targeted neurons from surrounding neural activity, and methods for selective neuronal ablation using the bacterial nitroreductase NfsB.
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Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development.
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Horstick, E.J., Tabor, K.M., Jordan, D.C., Burgess, H.A. (2016). Genetic Ablation, Sensitization, and Isolation of Neurons Using Nitroreductase and Tetrodotoxin-Insensitive Channels. In: Kawakami, K., Patton, E., Orger, M. (eds) Zebrafish. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1451. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3771-4_25
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3771-4_25
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