Daigle, T. L. et al. Cell 174, 465–480 (2018).

Cre driver lines and Cre-dependent reporters are important tools for studying the anatomy and function of the mouse brain. Daigle et al. now add 49 mouse lines to the existing collections of tools. About half of these lines are Cre and Flp lines with verified expression in various neuronal populations of interest. The remaining lines harbor reporters that are integrated into either the Rosa26 or the TIGRE locus. To achieve high reporter expression, the TIGRE tools rely on a tTA2-based amplification loop. Reporter lines based on the previously reported TIGRE1.0 platform require two sequential crosses with two driver lines, whereas the newly established TIGRE2.0 platform relies on a single cross only. The reporters include fluorescent proteins, calcium sensors and voltage sensors, as well as tools such as channelrhodopsin variants. These mouse lines represent a substantial addition to the existing mouse genetic toolkit and will facilitate genetic manipulations for the mouse neuroscience community.