Aldolase C (Aldoc, also known as ‘‘zebrin II’’), a brain type isozyme of a glycolysis enzyme, is expressed heterogeneously insubpopulations of cerebellar Purkinje cells (PCs) that are arranged longitudinally in a complex striped pattern in thecerebellar cortex, a pattern which is closely related to the topography of input and output axonal projections. Here, wegenerated knock-in Aldoc-Venus mice in which Aldoc expression is visualized by expression of a fluorescent protein, Venus.Since there was no obvious phenotypes in general brain morphology and in the striped pattern of the cerebellum inmutants, we made detailed observation of Aldoc expression pattern in the nervous system by using Venus expression inAldoc-Venus heterozygotes. High levels of Venus expression were observed in cerebellar PCs, cartwheel cells in the dorsalcochlear nucleus, sensory epithelium of the inner ear and in all major types of retinal cells, while moderate levels of Venusexpression were observed in astrocytes and satellite cells in the dorsal root ganglion. The striped arrangement of PCs thatexpress Venus to different degrees was carefully traced with serial section alignment analysis and mapped on the unfoldedscheme of the entire cerebellar cortex to re-identify all individual Aldoc stripes. A longitudinally striped boundary of Aldocexpression was first identified in the mouse flocculus, and was correlated with the climbing fiber projection pattern andexpression of another compartmental marker molecule, heat shock protein 25 (HSP25). As in the rat, the cerebellar nucleiwere divided into the rostrodorsal negative and the caudoventral positive portions by distinct projections of Aldoc-positiveand negative PC axons in the mouse. Identification of the cerebellar Aldoc stripes in this study, as indicated in samplecoronal and horizontal sections as well as in sample surface photos of whole-mount preparations, can be referred to infuture experiment
