Abstract
ABSTRACTLive imaging is the requisite tool for studying cell behaviors driving embryonic development and tissue formation. Genetically encoded reporters expressed under cell type-specific cis-regulatory elements that drive fluorescent protein expression at sufficient levels for visualization in living specimens have become indispensable for these studies. Increasingly dual-color (red-green) imaging is used for studying the coordinate behaviors of two cell populations of interest, identifying and characterizing subsets within broader cell populations or subcellular features. Many reporters have been generated using green fluorescent protein (GFP) due to its brightness and developmental neutrality. To compliment the large cohort of available GFP reporters that label cellular populations in early mouse embryos, we have generated a red fluorescent protein (RFP)-based transgenic reporter using the red fluorescent tdTomato protein driven by cis-regulatory elements from the mouse Hex locus. The Hex-tdTomato reporter predominantly labels endodermal cells. It is a bright RFP-based reporter of the distal visceral endoderm (DVE)/anterior visceral endoderm (AVE), a migratory population within the early post-implantation embryo. It also labels cells of the definitive endoderm (DE), which emerges at gastrulation. Dual-color visualization of these different early endodermal populations will provide a detailed understanding of the cellular behaviors driving key morphogenetic events involving the endoderm.
Highlights
Fluorescent reporters are an essential tool for live imaging, quantitation and understanding of complex cellular dynamics during development and tissue morphogenesis
The endoderm specificity of the Hex-tdTomato construct was validated by transfection into Caco2 and Hepa1-6 cell lines
Two of the founder lines (#7 and #41) produced faithful Hex-tdTomato expression at all stages of embryos analyzed. Images presented in this manuscript are of hemizygous embryos of the line established from founder #7
Summary
Fluorescent reporters are an essential tool for live imaging, quantitation and understanding of complex cellular dynamics during development and tissue morphogenesis. The transgenic Hex-tdTomato mouse line we have generated enables dual-color live imaging of distinct endoderm cell populations and their respective cellular behaviors.
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