What does cell reporter status indicate?

How To Allen Cell Types Database
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Dear community,

I am currently interested in studying the differences of electrophysiological features of neurons according to their cell type (Excitatory/ Inhibitory, VIP, Sst, etc…). To do so I would check the mouse_line information in the cell metadata, which indicates the mouse line from which the neuron has been recorded. But I don’t understand in the cell’s metadata, what does the ‘cell_reporter_status’ indicate? For example with cell 341459814 whose line name is Pvalb-IRES-Cre and reporter status is ‘positive’, does that mean that the recorded cell can be labelled as Pvalb cell (in opposition to cell 479010903 which is also Pvalb-IRES-Cre but whose cell reporter status is negative)?

In a more general point of view, if I want to study only Pvalb neurons, should I select only the cells whose line_name is Pvalb-IRES-Cre and whose the cell_reporter_status is positive, and not consider the cells whose cell_reporter_status is negative?

I hope it is the good place to ask.
Thank you for any help you can give me!

Best regards,
Julien Ballbé

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The cell reporter status tells whether the expressed reporter (typically the fluorescent protein tdTomato) is present (“positive”) or absent (“negative”). So yes, cell 341459814 is a fluorescently labeled cell from the Pvalb-IRES-Cre line crossed to a reporter line, and cell 479010903 is not fluorescently labeled.

So you are correct that you generally want to look for cell reporter status positive cells in a Pvalb-labeling transgenic line and not the negative cells if you want to find a population of Pvalb+ cells. There of course could be Pvalb+ cells that are reporter negative that use non-Pvalb transgenic driver lines, but you’d have to use other information to infer their identity (like electrophysiology/morphology).

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Thank you very much for the clarification!!
Best regards,

Julien