Canonical Wnt Signaling Drives Tumor-Like Lesions from Sox2-Positive Precursors of the Murine Olfactory Epithelium
Fig 1
The Sox2-CreERT2 mouse is a suitable driver strain for studying gene function in the mouse olfactory epithelium (OE).
At embryonic day 14.5 of mouse development (E14.5) the transcription factor Sox2 is already expressed in basal and apical progenitor cells of the olfactory epithelium (A). The mouse breeding scheme used in this study is displayed in panel B. Model induction via single tamoxifen application at E14.5 targets the whole progeny of the OE structure present at the day of birth (P0) as demonstrated in a Sox2-creERT2::tdTomato reporter strain (D). These targeted cells comprise Sox2-positive stem cells at the basal site of the OE (arrows, C-E), non-neuronal apical Sox2-positive sustentacular cells (nuclei of sustentacular cells delineated by dashed line, C-E) as well as Tuj-1-positive neuronal cells of the OE (a Tuj1/RFP-double-positive cell is depicted in high power insets, F-H). Single embryonic tamoxifen injection of Sox2-creERT2::tdTomato animals is sufficient to cover the whole mature OE in adult mice as shown for P28 (J; specific RFP detection compared to control in I). Scale bars equate to 500 μm in I-J, 25 μm in A and 10 μm in C-H.