AAV with eSYN promoter driven hChR2(T159C)-mCherry

This AAV expresses hChR2(T159C)-mCherry driven by a neuron eSYN promoter.

The eSYN is a hybrid promoter consisting of a 0.4Kb CMV enhancer (E) and the 0.45Kb human Synapsin I promoter fragment (hSYN1). eSYN hybrid promoter gives about 2-4 fold higher expression than that of the parental hSYN1 promoter. However, the neuronal specificity of eSYN is slightly decreased, compared to that of the parental hSYN1 promoter.

hChR2 is a humanized version of ChR2 for mammalian expression. The wild-type, as well as a few mutations, provide the fastest excitation of the channelrhodopsins offered, and are widely used in optogenetics techniques in neuroscience. hChR2(T159C) shows slightly higher photocurrents than the hChR2(H134R), another commonly used optogenetics tool.