Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Cardiac Consequences Of Selective Adrenergic Cell Ablation In Mice, Lahari Tumuluri

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Phenylethanolamine-N-methyltransferase (Pnmt), is the enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of noradrenaline to adrenaline. It has been found in the embryonic heart and in certain adult heart cells, including intrinsic cardiac adrenergic cells, intracardiac neurons, and cardiomyocytes, but their physiological role in the heart is not well understood. To determine the function of Pnmt-expressing cells in the developing heart, a novel genetically-targeted mouse model that causes selective cellular suicide of Pnmt-expressing cells was created by mating Pnmt-Cre Recombinase knock-in mice (Pnmt^Cre/Cre) with ROSA26-eGFP-DTA (R26R^+/DTA). The “cellular suicide” allele is the Diptheria Toxin A (DTA) gene …