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

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