I am designing an experiment where I would like to cross mice expressing cre in my cell subset of interest with mice that express either cre-inducible diphtheria toxin receptor (DTR) or cre-inducible diphtheria toxin subunit A (DTA)? I don't fully understand the pros/cons of using either a DTR or a DTA mouse line or how the protocols would differ when ablating my cell subset of interest. I am struggling to find any literature that compares the two methods or really describes the methods in any detailed way at all. Does anyone have experience with this?
I think Katherine Poinsatte is not really planning on using CreER. If that's the case, then you don't need to worry about tamoxifen.
Essentially you have two different scenarios, each with their advantages and disadvantaged. You should use which one is better for you based on what you have available in your lab.
As Farin B. Bourojeni mentioned, using DTR is good because it allows you to control when your target cells are going to die. In other words, the animal will grow normally until the point when you inject diphtheria toxin (DTX). The drawback is that DTX is extremely dangerous and you might need to handle it in a level 2 biosafety facility, which might not be available at your institution.
Using a DTA line doesn't have this problem, since the cells themselves will express the A subunit of DTX and die on their own. However, this will happen whenever you Cre starts to be expressed by the cell. Also, some people report that you may get inespecific cell death due to leakage of the DTA protein during necrotic cell death, so you would have to assess how specific is your ablation.
Hope this helps!