Vegfr3-tdTomato, a reporter mouse for microscopic visualization of lymphatic vessel by multiple modalities

Raw dataset for individual figure panels corresponding to "Redder E, Kirschnick N, Hägerling R, Hansmeier N, Kiefer F. 2021. Vegfr3-tdTomato, a reporter mouse for microscopic visualization of lymphatic vessel by multiple modalities. bioRxiv:2021.2003.2016.435629". Maximum intensity projections are deposited (in .tiff file format).

Abstract:
Lymphatic vessels are indispensable for tissue fluid homeostasis, transport of solutes
and dietary lipids and immune cell trafficking. In contrast to blood vessels, which are
easily visible by their erythrocyte cargo, lymphatic vessels are not readily detected in
the tissue context. Their invisibility interferes with the analysis of the three-dimensional
lymph vessel structure in large tissue volumes and hampers dynamic intravital studies
on lymphatic function and pathofunction. An approach to overcome these limitations
are mouse models, which express transgenic fluorescent proteins under the control of
tissue-specific promotor elements.
We introduce here the BAC-transgenic mouse reporter strain Vegfr3 -tdTomato that
expresses a membrane-tagged version of tdTomato under control of Flt4 regulatory
elements. Vegfr3 -tdTomato mice inherited the reporter in a mendelian fashion and
showed selective and stable fluorescence in the lymphatic vessels of multiple organs
tested, including lung, kidney, heart, diaphragm, intestine, mesentery and dermis. In
this model, tdTomato expression was sufficient for direct visualisation of lymphatic
vessels by epifluorescence microscopy. Furthermore, lymph vessels were readily
visualized using a number of microscopic modalities including confocal laser scanning,
light sheet fluorescence and two-photon microscopy. Due to the early onset of VEGFR-
3 expression in venous embryonic vessels and the short maturation time of tdTomato,
this reporter offers an interesting alternative to Prox1-promoter driven lymphatic
reporter mice for instance to study the developmental differentiation of venous to
lymphatic endothelial cells.