Genetic Mouse Models for Enteric Neuroscience

This study was conducted in accordance with the protocols reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at Massachusetts General Hospital (Protocol #2009N000239). All methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. The reporting in the manuscript follows the recommendations in the ARRIVE guidelines.
Wnt1::Cre mice (Stock #003829 and Stock #009107), R26R-tdT reporter mice (Stock #007914), and R26R-ChR2tdT reporter mice (Stock #012567) were purchased from Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, ME, USA). Wnt1::Cre mice were crossed with R26R-tdT and R26R-ChR2tdT reporter mice to generate Wnt1::Cre;R26-tdT (annotated as Wnt1-tdT) and Wnt1::Cre;R26-ChR2tdT (annotated as Wnt1-ChR2) mice, respectively.
We also generated Plp1-GFP;Wnt1-tdT mice [22 (link)] in which enteric glial cells express GFP and neural crest-derived ENS expresses tdTomato by crossing Plp1GFP;Wnt1::Cre mice with R26R-tdT mice. Plp1GFP mice [23 (link)] were kindly gifted by Dr. Wendy Macklin, University of Colorado, Denver. Heterozygote nNOS mice (Stock #002986) were purchased from Jackson Laboratory and bred to obtain homozygote nNOS knockout mice (nNOS^−/−).