All mice used in this study were housed at the State University of New York, College of Optometry, in accordance with the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee–approved protocols and ARVO Statement for the Use of Animals in Ophthalmic and Vision Research. The
Rlbp1-CreERT2 strain was obtained from Edward Levine, PhD, Vanderbilt University.
22 The Glast-CreER strain (Tg[Slc1a3-cre/ERT]1Nat, ID 012586, generated by Jeremy Nathans, MD, PhD, Johns Hopkins University), the
R26-stop-flox-CAG-tdTomato strain (Ai14, #007908), and the Dicer conditional knockout strain (
Dicerf/f, #006001, generated by Brian Harfe, PhD,
23) were obtained from The Jackson Laboratories (Bar Harbor, ME, USA) to create the following wildtype and Dicer-conditional knockout (cKO) strains: (1)
Rlbp1-CreERT2: stopf/f-tdTomato (referred to as Rlbp-Cre:tdTomato or wildtype) and corresponding (2)
Rlbp1-CreERT2: stopf/f-tdTomato:
Dicerf/f (referred to as Rlbp-Cre:tdTomato:Dicer-cKO
MG, or abbreviated Rlbp-Cre:Dicer-cKO
MG), as well as (3)
Glast1-CreER: stopf/f-tdTomato (referred to as Glast-Cre: tdTomato or wildtype) and corresponding (4)
Glast1-CreER: stopf/f-tdTomato: Dicerf/f (referred to as Glast-Cre:tdTomato:Dicer-cKO
MG, or abbreviated Glast-Cre:Dicer-cKO
MG). Males and females were used. Genotyping was done using the primers listed in
Supplementary Table S1. Tamoxifen (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA) was administered intraperitoneally at 75 mg/kg in corn oil for 4 consecutive days, for Dicer deletion at P11–14, to initiate the recombination of the floxed alleles. Furthermore, S129 mice (Rlbp1-CreER background strain), tdTomato mice (C57Bl6 background strain), and Cre-negative mice were used as controls and were compared to tamoxifen-treated wildtype mice to exclude the possibility of a treatment effect or any abnormality of the wildtype controls used.