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Molecular taxonomy of major neuronal classes in the adult mouse forebrain

Nature Neuroscience volume 9, pages 99–107 (2006)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 01 February 2006

Abstract

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.

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Figure 1: Twelve neuronal populations.
Figure 2: Selected differentially expressed genes among 12 neuronal populations.
Figure 3: Electrophysiological verification.
Figure 4: Heterogeneity of gene expression within neuronal subpopulations.
Figure 5: Gene ontology map.
Figure 6: Differential expression of gene paralogs.

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Acknowledgements

We thank G. Turrigiano, P. Sengupta, D. Das and Y. Sugino for comments on the manuscript; R. Pavlyuk, Z. Zhao and Z. Meng for technical assistance; and J. Fahrenkrug (Bispebjerg University Hospital, Denmark) for a gift of VIP/PHI antibody. This work was supported by a grant from the National Eye Institute.

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Author notes

  1. Ken Sugino and Chris M Hempel: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology and National Center for Behavioral Genomics, Brandeis University, MS 008, 415 South Street, Waltham, 02454-9110, Massachusetts, USA

    Ken Sugino, Chris M Hempel, Mark N Miller, Alexis M Hattox, Peter Shapiro & Sacha B Nelson

  2. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 11724, USA

    Caizi Wu & Z Josh Huang

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  1. Ken Sugino
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Correspondence to Sacha B Nelson.

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Sugino, K., Hempel, C., Miller, M. et al. Molecular taxonomy of major neuronal classes in the adult mouse forebrain. Nat Neurosci 9, 99–107 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1618

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