title: Genome-wide identification of neuronal activity-regulated genes inDrosophila.
abstract: Activity-regulated genes (ARGs) are important for neuronal functions like long-term memory and are well-characterized in mammals but poorly studied in other model organisms likeDrosophila. Here we stimulated fly neurons with different paradigms and identified ARGs using high-throughput sequencing from brains as well as from sorted neurons: they included a narrow set of circadian neurons as well as dopaminergic neurons. Surprisingly, many ARGs are specific to the stimulation paradigm and very specific to neuron type. In addition and unlike mammalian immediate early genes (IEGs), fly ARGs do not have short gene lengths and are less enriched for transcription factor function. Chromatin assays using ATAC-sequencing show that the transcription start sites (TSS) of ARGs do not change with neural firing but are already accessible prior to stimulation. Lastly based on binding site enrichment in ARGs, we identified transcription factor mediators of firing and created neuronal activity reporters.
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Brandeis University, Waltham, United States.|National Center for Behavioral Genomics, Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, United States.
authors.forename: Xiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Brandeis University, Waltham, United States.|National Center for Behavioral Genomics, Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, United States.
authors.forename: Reazur
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rahman
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Brandeis University, Waltham, United States.|National Center for Behavioral Genomics, Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, United States.
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Brandeis University, Waltham, United States.|National Center for Behavioral Genomics, Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, United States.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3366-1780
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rosbash
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D059290:Dopaminergic Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D024363:Transcription Initiation Site
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins
keywords: D. melanogaster; RNA high-throughput sequencing; chromatin accessibility; neural activity reporters; neural firing; neuroscience; optogenetics