Cortical Excitatory Neurons and Glia, But Not GABAergic Neurons, Are Produced in the Emx1-Expressing Lineage

By homologous recombination of an internal ribosome entry site and Cre recombinase coding region into the 3'-untranslated region of the mouse Emx1 gene, we have generated a strain of mice, Emx1(IRES)cre, that expresses the Cre recombinase in a spatial and temporal pattern like that observed for Emx1. When mated to reporter strains, these mice are a sensitive means to fate-map the Emx1-expressing cells of the developing forebrain. Our results demonstrate that radial glia, Cajal-Retzius cells, glutamatergic neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes of most pallial structures originate from an Emx1-expressing lineage. On the other hand, most of the pallial GABAergic neurons arise outside the Emx1-expressing lineage. Structures that are located near the basal ganglia (e.g., the amygdala and endopiriform nuclei) are not uniformly derived from Emx1-expressing cells.