Visualization of lymphatic vessels by Prox1-promoter directed GFP reporter in a bacterial artificial chromosome-based...

Although the blood vessel-specific fluorescent transgenic mouse has been an excellent tool to study vasculogenesis and angiogenesis, a lymphatic-specific fluorescent mouse model has not been established to date. Here we report a transgenic animal model that expresses the green fluorescent protein under the promoter of Prox1, a master control gene in lymphatic development. Generated using an approximately 200-kb-long bacterial artificial chromosome harboring the entire Prox1 gene, this Prox1-green fluorescent protein mouse was found to faithfully recapitulate the expression pattern of the Prox1 gene in lymphatic endothelial cells and other Prox1-expressing organs, and enabled us to conveniently visualize detailed structure and morphology of lymphatic vessels and networks throughout development. Our data demonstrate that this novel transgenic mouse can be extremely useful for detection, imaging, and isolation of lymphatic vessels and monitoring wound-associated lymphangiogenesis. Together, this Prox1-green fluorescent protein transgenic mouse will be a great tool for the lymphatic research.