Wildtype c57bl6 n mice

Wild-type C57BL/6N mice (female, 6–8 weeks of age) were purchased from Vital River Laboratory Animal Technology Co., Ltd. (Beijing, China). The mice were anesthetized with 50 mg/kg pentobarbital via intraperitoneal injection. The right corneas were scratched by a 22-gauge needle, and then 5 μL of 1 × 10⁶ CFU of C. albicans was inoculated onto the scratched cornea to induce keratitis (22 (link)). Animals that served as mock-infected controls were inoculated with sterile PBS. The mice were monitored daily for 1 week post-inoculation (p.i.) using slit lamp to evaluate corneal infection and the clinical scores (ranging from 0 to 12); a grading scale of 0 to 4 was assigned to each of the following three aspects: area of opacity, opacity density, and surface regularity of the corneas. A total score of 0–5 signaled mild eye disease, 6–9 indicated moderate disease, and 10–12 represented severe disease (23 (link)). C. albicans keratitis was created at day 0 and mice were sacrificed at 1, 3, and 7 days post-inoculation (dpi), and the right eyes were enucleated for analysis. Animal treatments were conducted strictly in accordance with the ARVO Statement for the Use of Animals in Ophthalmic and Vision Research. All experimental protocols related to animals were approved by the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

All procedures were conducted with the approval of the Animal Care and Use Committee of the National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, in accordance with governmental regulations of China. We used 6–12-week-old male or female mice. ChAT-ChR2-EYFP mice were gifts from G. Feng (MIT, Cambridge, MA, United States). Tac1-IRES-Cre (stock no: 021877), Ai32 mice (stock no: 012569), and SST-IRSE-Cre mice (stock no: 013044) were obtained from Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, ME, United States). ChAT-Cre mice were obtained from Mutant Mouse Research and Resource Center (Davis, CA, USA). Wildtype C57BL6/N mice were purchased from VitalRiver (Beijing, China).

All procedures were conducted with the approval of the Animal Care and Use Committee of the National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, in accordance with governmental regulations of China. All mice were maintained on a 12 h reverse light/dark cycle (light on 8 PM) and given ad libitum access to chow and water except for the food-chasing task. NMB-Cre heterozygous mice were maintained on a mixed FVB/N & C57BL/6J background. Adult (8-16 weeks old) Vgat-ires-Cre mice [STOCK B6J.129S6(FVB)-Slc32a1^tm2(cre)Lowl/MwarJ, NO: 028862] and Vglut2-ires-Cre mice [STOCK Slc17a6tm2(cre)Lowl/J, NO: 016963] of were obtained from the Jackson Laboratory (USA). The Chat-Cre transgenic mice [Tg (ChAT-Cre)24Gsat] were provided by MMRRC (Davis, CA, USA). Wildtype C57BL6/N mice were purchased from VitalRiver (Beijing, China). Mice were at least six weeks old at the time of surgery. Unless stated otherwise, all studies employed a mixture of male and female mice, and no differences between sexes were observed. All procedures were conducted during the dark cycle.