AAV with CamKII(0.4) promoter driven LacZ

This AAV expresses LacZ driven by a neuron CamKII(0.4) promoter.

This 0.4 Kb promoter is derived from murine α-Calcium/calmodulin-dependent kinase II (CaMKII), a gene with expression restricted to excitatory neurons in the neocortex and hippocampus. It was shown that the promoter activity of CaMKII(0.4) is almost identical to that of CaMKII(1.3) in cortical neurons, Compared to CaMKII(1.3), this short promoter allows cloning of longer gene of interest into the AAV construct .

The bacterial enzyme -galactosidase (gene LacZ) is frequently used as a reporter gene. It can be easily located with LacZ staining using the artificial substrate X-gal, which turns blue when cleaved by -galactosidase (LacZ).