A tau-lacZ and neo cassette was inserted into the second exon deleting 95 bp of the 5' untranslated region including the start codon. The neo cassette was removed by germ-line, cre-mediated recombination. LacZ expression recapitulated endogenous promoter expression. Absence of target expression was confirmed by in situ hybridization. This is a null allele. (J:130616)