Nppa-Cre Mouse

The Nppa gene encodes a protein that belongs to the natriuretic peptide family, which is involved in controlling extracellular fluid volume and electrolyte homeostasis. The protein first forms a precursor containing a signal peptide, which is processed to release a peptide similar to vasoactive peptides and cardiac diastolic peptides from the N-terminus and a peptide with natriuretic activity from the C-terminus. Mutations in the Nppa gene are associated with familial atrial fibrillation 6. In prenatal mice, the Nppa gene is first expressed in the ventricles and subsequently shifts to expression in the atria. In the hearts of healthy postnatal female mice, Nppa expression is limited to the atria as part of the fetal gene activation program. In adult mice, Nppa can be re-expressed in the ventricles in response to pathological stress. The Nppa gene can serve as an important marker for studying cardiac chamber formation and cardiac specification, as well as for investigating the molecular mechanisms of myocardial hypertrophy and heart failure due to its unique expression pattern ^[1].

This strain was constructed using gene editing technology. Part of the exon 1 coding sequence was replaced with the “Cre-rBG pA” cassette. Nppa-Cre mice can specifically express Cre recombinase in ventricular and atrial cardiomyocytes. When this strain is crossed with mice containing loxP sites, the offspring can produce sequence recombination between loxP sites mediated by Cre recombinase in cardiomyocytes. The heterozygous Nppa-Cre mice are viable and fertile.