Molecular taxonomy of major neuronal classes in the adult mouse forebrain.
Identifying the neuronal cell types that comprise the mammalian forebrain is a central unsolved problem in neuroscience. Global gene expression profiles offer a potentially unbiased way to assess functional relationships between neurons. Here, we carried out microarray analysis of 12 populations of neurons in the adult mouse forebrain. Five of these populations were chosen from cingulate cortex and included several subtypes of GABAergic interneurons and pyramidal neurons. The remaining seven were derived from the somatosensory cortex, hippocampus, amygdala and thalamus. Using these expression profiles, we were able to construct a taxonomic tree that reflected the expected major relationships between these populations, such as the distinction between cortical interneurons and projection neurons. The taxonomic tree indicated highly heterogeneous gene expression even within a single region. This dataset should be useful for the classification of unknown neuronal subtypes, the investigation of specifically expressed genes and the genetic manipulation of specific neuronal circuit elements.
Sugino
Ken
K
Department of Biology and National Center for Behavioral Genomics, Brandeis University, MS 008, 415 South Street, Waltham, Massachusetts 02454-9110, USA.
Hempel
Chris M
CM
Miller
Mark N
MN
Hattox
Alexis M
AM
Shapiro
Peter
P
Wu
Caizi
C
Huang
Z Josh
ZJ
Nelson
Sacha B
SB
D000818:Animals; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D001923:Brain Chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D004594:Electrophysiology; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D015870:Gene Expression / Q000502:physiology*; D017930:Genes, Reporter / Q000235:genetics; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D017403:In Situ Hybridization; D008164:Luminescent Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D009474:Neurons / Q000145:classification* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D018408:Patch-Clamp Techniques; D016548:Prosencephalon / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D008164:Luminescent Proteins; C054562:yellow fluorescent protein, Bacteria; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins