Impact of area patterning genes on corticopontine projection topography: Anterograde tracing of corticopontine projections in Nr2f1 conditional knockout mice lacking postmitotic expression of Nr2f1 (v1)

This data set comprises fluorescence microscopy images of serial sagittal mouse brain sections showing anterogradely labelled corticofugal axons in 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. Juvenile mice received injections of the viral tracer AAV9-CAGtdTomato plasmid at discrete locations in the somatosensory or motor cortices. Microscopic images acquired using a 10x objective show anterograde axonal labelling across brains, including discrete clusters of axonal labelling in the pontine nuclei. The data have been used to demonstrate that proper area mapping of the neocortical primordium is a pre-requisite for correct establishment of topographic organization of corticopontine axonal projections. Notably, in Nex-cKO mice, axonal projections arising from locations normally corresponding to the primary cortex are abnormally shifted to more peripheral parts of the pontine nuclei, compared to controls. 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.