I’m injecting AAV-EF1a-DIO-mCherry into the motor cortex of Drd2-Cre mice. 2-3 weeks later, by using fluorescence microscope, I’m able to trace axons crossing corpus callosum to contralateral hemisphere and going down ipsilaterally up to medullary pyramids (intensity of the fluorescent signal is really good!). However, I’ve noticed that people who perform viral tracing studies often amplify the RFP (or GFP) signals with an antibody. In fact I’m doing the same to enhance endogenous td-Tomato signal in different set of experiments. But I wonder why people are using antibodies for viral tracing studies and if there is any benefit of staining brain sections obtained from mice injected with DIO-mCherry in my experiments?

Thanks, Przemyslaw