Conditional Knockout of Kif5b in Layer V Neurons

Mice were group housed under a 12 hr light/dark cycle, with food and water available ad libitum. C57BL/6 mice expressing CaMKIIα-Cre and yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) in layer V pyramidal neurons (Thy1-YFP-H) and CaMKIIα promoter-driven Cre transgenic mice were purchased from the Jackson Laboratory. Kif5b^fl/fl mice were described previously (Cui et al., 2011 (link)). CaMKIIα promoter-driven Cre transgenic mice were used to conditionally delete exons flanked by loxP. Mice were then further crossed with Thy1-YFP-H line to allow imaging of layer V pyramidal neurons. Sample size was decided based on experiments in previous studies (Lai et al., 2012 (link); Yang et al., 2014 (link)). For animal behavioral tests and in vivo imaging experiments, results from at least two independent experiments were pooled together for analysis. Mice were group housed in The Laboratory Animal Unit, The University of Hong Kong, accredited by Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International. Four to five weeks old mice were used in this study unless stated otherwise. All experiments were approved and performed in accordance with University of Hong Kong Committee on the Use of Live Animals in Teaching and Research guidelines.