Fig. 7. Analysis of L7cre; Pten^LoxP/LoxP mice. (A) Transgenic construct used for microinjection. Whole-mount ß-gal staining of Purkinje cells in L7cre; ROSA26R mouse brains (B,C) and after paraffin embedding and counterstaining with nuclear Fast Red (D). Calbindin immunostaining of wild-type (E), 7-week-old L7cre; Pten^LoxP/LoxP mice (F) and 16-week-old L7cre; Pten^LoxP/LoxP mice (G), showing increase of cell size with thickening of dendritic processes, vacuolisation, degeneration and progressive loss of Purkinje cells. Immunostaining for phosphorylated AKT (H-J) reveals baseline levels in Purkinje cells, Bergmann glia cells and Golgi cells in controls (H), while degenerating Purkinje cells of 7-week-old mice (I) and of 16-week-old mice (J) show heavy accumulation of p-AKT. Scale bar: 100 µm in D-J.