In:
PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science (PLoS), Vol. 16, No. 9 ( 2021-9-20), p. e0249256-
Abstract:
Lymphatic vessels are indispensable for tissue fluid homeostasis, transport of solutes and dietary lipids and immune cell trafficking. In contrast to blood vessels, which are easily visible by their erythrocyte cargo, lymphatic vessels are not readily detected in the tissue context. Their invisibility interferes with the analysis of the three-dimensional lymph vessel structure in large tissue volumes and hampers dynamic intravital studies on lymphatic function and pathofunction. An approach to overcome these limitations are mouse models, which express transgenic fluorescent proteins under the control of tissue-specific promotor elements. We introduce here the BAC-transgenic mouse reporter strain Vegfr3 -tdTomato that expresses a membrane-tagged version of tdTomato under control of Flt4 regulatory elements. Vegfr3 -tdTomato mice inherited the reporter in a mendelian fashion and showed selective and stable fluorescence in the lymphatic vessels of multiple organs tested, including lung, kidney, heart, diaphragm, intestine, mesentery, liver and dermis. In this model, tdTomato expression was sufficient for direct visualisation of lymphatic vessels by epifluorescence microscopy. Furthermore, lymph vessels were readily visualized using a number of microscopic modalities including confocal laser scanning, light sheet fluorescence and two-photon microscopy. Due to the early onset of VEGFR-3 expression in venous embryonic vessels and the short maturation time of tdTomato, this reporter offers an interesting alternative to Prox1 -promoter driven lymphatic reporter mice for instance to study the developmental differentiation of venous to lymphatic endothelial cells.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
1932-6203
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.g001
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.g002
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.g003
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.g004
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.g005
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.g006
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.g007
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.s001
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.s002
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.s003
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.s004
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.s005
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.s006
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.s007
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.r001
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.r002
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.r003
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0249256.r004
Language:
English
Publisher:
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Publication Date:
2021
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2267670-3
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