AUTHOR=Perrenoud Quentin , Geoffroy Hélène , Gautier Benjamin , Rancillac Armelle , Alfonsi Fabienne , Kessaris Nicoletta , Rossier Jean , Vitalis Tania , Gallopin Thierry TITLE=Characterization of Type I and Type II nNOS-Expressing Interneurons in the Barrel Cortex of Mouse JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neural Circuits VOLUME=6 YEAR=2012 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neural-circuits/articles/10.3389/fncir.2012.00036 DOI=10.3389/fncir.2012.00036 ISSN=1662-5110 ABSTRACT=
In the neocortex, neuronal nitric oxide (NO) synthase (nNOS) is essentially expressed in two classes of GABAergic neurons: type I neurons displaying high levels of expression and type II neurons displaying weaker expression. Using immunocytochemistry in mice expressing GFP under the control of the glutamic acid decarboxylase 67k (GAD67) promoter, we studied the distribution of type I and type II neurons in the barrel cortex and their expression of parvalbumin (PV), somatostatin (SOM), and vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP). We found that type I neurons were predominantly located in deeper layers and expressed SOM (91.5%) while type II neurons were concentrated in layer II/III and VI and expressed PV (17.7%), SOM (18.7%), and VIP (10.2%). We then characterized neurons expressing nNOS mRNA (