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Novel Strains Of Mice Deficient For The Vesicular Acetylcholine Transporter: Insights On Transcriptional Regulation And Control Of Locomotor Behavior, Christina Martins-Silva, Xavier De Jaeger, Monica S. Guzman, Ricardo D. F. Lima, Magda S. Santos, Christopher Kushmerick, Marcus V. Gomez, Marc G. Caron, Marco A. M. Prado, Vania F. Prado

Anatomy and Cell Biology Publications

Defining the contribution of acetylcholine to specific behaviors has been challenging, mainly because of the difficulty in generating suitable animal models of cholinergic dysfunction. We have recently shown that, by targeting the vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT) gene, it is possible to generate genetically modified mice with cholinergic deficiency. Here we describe novel VAChT mutant lines. VAChT gene is embedded within the first intron of the choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) gene, which provides a unique arrangement and regulation for these two genes. We generated a VAChT allele that is flanked by loxP sequences and carries the resistance cassette placed in a ChAT …