AAV-Mediated Anterograde Transsynaptic Tagging: Mapping Corticocollicular Input-Defined Neural Pathways for Defense Behaviors.

ABSTRACT: To decipher neural circuits underlying brain functions, viral tracers are widely applied to map input and output connectivity of neuronal populations. Despite the successful application of retrograde transsynaptic viruses for identifying presynaptic neurons of transduced neurons, analogous anterograde transsynaptic tools for tagging postsynaptically targeted neurons remain under development. Here, we discovered that adeno-associated viruses (AAV1 and AAV9) exhibit anterograde transsynaptic spread properties. AAV1-Cre from transduced presynaptic neurons effectively and specifically drives Cre-dependent transgene expression in selected postsynaptic neuronal targets, thus allowing axonal tracing and functional manipulations of the latter input-defined neuronal population. Its application in s

SUBMITTER: Zingg B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5538794 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature