Moreover, monitoring of defined cells in brain slices can be achieved by acquiring tissue from transgenic animals expressing fluorescent reporter genes under the control of cell-type specific promoters such as CX3CR1 (for microglia), GFAP (for astrocyte-specificity) or tie1 (for endothelial cells) and by ectopic gene expression through ectopic transfection or viral infection [24]. This evidence concerns the gene CX3CR1 and viral infectious disease.