Fig. 1

Strategy for astroglial Cx43 icKO mouse generation. a A schematic diagram showing the generation of cortical astroglia-specific Cx43 icKO mice. To obtain cortical astroglia-specific Cx43 icKO mice, GLASTCreER^T2 and Cx43^fl/fl mice (left) were bred to generate GLASTCreER^T2;Cx43^fl/fl mice (right), which were injected with tamoxifen for recombination. b Evaluation of β-galactosidase-expressing cells after staining with 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl-β-galactopyranoside (X-gal), to identify CreER^T2-mediated recombination. The X-gal⁺ regions (blue) represent areas with Cre-mediated recombination. Cre-mediated recombination occurred in the cerebral and cerebellar cortices, and the striatum, but little recombination occurred in the spinal cord. STR striatum, HC hippocampus, C cerebellum, CC cervical spinal cord, TC thoracic spinal cord, LC lumbar spinal cord, D dorsal, V ventral. Scale bars: 1 mm. c Double immunofluorescence for Cx43 (green) and GFAP (red). The expression of Cx43 was widely ablated in the cerebral and cerebellar cortices, but not in the spinal cord. GFAP expression in Cx43 icKO mice was similar to that in Cx43^fl/fl mice. Each figure was counterstained with DAPI (blue). Scale bars: 100 μm for the upper row, 20 μm for the lower row