scRNA-seq of a suite of transgenic driver and reporter mouse lines with enhanced brain cell type targeting and functionality

Modern genetic approaches are powerful in providing access to diverse types of neurons within the mammalian brain and greatly facilitating the study of their function. We describe the TIGRE2.0 transgenic platform and introduce Cre-dependent reporter lines that enable optical physiology, optogenetics, and sparse labeling of genetically-defined cell populations. TIGRE2.0 reporters broke the barrier in transgene expression level of single-copy targeted-insertion transgenesis in a wide range of neuronal types, along with additional advantage of a simplified breeding strategy compared to our first-generation TIGRE lines. These novel transgenic lines greatly expand the repertoire of high-precision genetic tools available to effectively identify, monitor, and manipulate distinct cell types in the mouse brain. Here, we characterize the transcriptome of a subset of these new lines by scRNA-seq. scRNA-seq of 4,776 cells from primary visual cortex (VISp) and anterior lateral motor cortex (ALM) in the mouse brain.