Impact of area patterning genes on corticopontine projection topography: Point coordinate data representing spatial distribution of corticopontine projections in Nr2f1 conditional knockout mice and controls (v1)

This data set contains three-dimensional (3D) point coordinate data representing the spatial distribution of anterogradely labelled corticopontine projections in the pontine nuclei of cortico-specific Nr2f1 (also known as COUP-TFI) conditional knockout mice and controls. Transgenic mice were generated by crossing Nr2f1-floxed with Nex-Cre-recombinase mice to abolish Nr2f1 expression from postmitotic neurons. Littermate Nr2f1-floxed mice without the presence of the Cre-recombinase gene (Cre-negatives) were used as controls. Tract-tracing data from wild-type mice shared by the Allen institute were used as supplementary controls. The transgenic mice and littermate controls received injections of the viral tracer AAV9-CAGtdTomato plasmid in discrete locations in the somatosensory or motor cortices (original data (DOI: [10.25493/RNK8-CAN](https://doi.org/10.25493/RNK8-CAN)). The wildtype animals (experiments from the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas) received injections of a pan-neuronal AAV-expressing EGFP viral tracer (rAAV2/1.hSynapsin.EGFP.WPRE.bGH) in the primary somatosensory cortex. Microscopic images of sagittal serial sections were spatially registered to the Allen mouse brain atlas (CCFv3), before axonal labelling in the pontine nuclei was recorded as point coordinates, using an image annotation tool to semiquantitatively represent the overall location and density of labelling. The data points are suitable for co-visualization of different combinations of data sets for comparing the topographic arrangement of corticopontine projections. The data have been used to demonstrate that proper area mapping of the neocortical primordium is a pre-requisite for correct establishment of topographically organized corticopontine projections.