TY - JOUR
T1 - Identification of thermosensory and olfactory neuron-specific genes via expression profiling of single neuron types
AU - Colosimo, Marc E.
AU - Brown, Adam
AU - Mukhopadhyay, Saikat
AU - Gabel, Christopher
AU - Lanjuin, Anne E.
AU - Samuel, Aravinthan D T
AU - Sengupta, Piali
N1 - Funding Information:
We are extremely grateful to Rebecca Fox and David Miller for generously sharing their time, cell culture expertise and unpublished data, Maura Berkeley for technical assistance, Bill Nostrum for assistance with FACS analysis, Dae-Hwan Kim for assistance with gfp fusion plasmids, Ken Sugino for help with data analysis, Catherine Dulac for advice regarding nucleic acid amplification, and Mark Palfreyman and Miriam Goodman for initiating early versions of these experiments. We thank Oliver Hobert, Sacha Nelson, David Miller and the Sengupta lab for critical comments on the manuscript. M.E.C.'s affiliation with the MITRE Corporation is provided for identification purposes only and is not intended to convey or imply MITRE's concurrence with, or support for, the positions, opinions, or viewpoints expressed by the author. This work was partly funded by the National Institutes of Health (RO1 GM56223 and PO1 NS44232 – P.S. and T32 MH19929 – A.B.) and the National Science Foundation (IBN 021430 – P.S. and MRSEC DMR 0213805 – C.G.).
PY - 2004/12/29
Y1 - 2004/12/29
N2 - Most C. elegans sensory neuron types consist of a single bilateral pair of neurons, and respond to a unique set of sensory stimuli. Although genes required for the development and function of individual sensory neuron types have been identified in forward genetic screens, these approaches are unlikely to identify genes that when mutated result in subtle or pleiotropic phenotypes. Here, we describe a complementary approach to identify sensory neuron type-specific genes via microarray analysis using RNA from sorted AWB olfactory and AFD thermosensory neurons. The expression patterns of subsets of these genes were further verified in vivo. Genes identified by this analysis encode 7-transmembrane receptors, kinases, and nuclear factors including dac-1, which encodes a homolog of the highly conserved Dachshund protein [1]. dac-1 is expressed in a subset of sensory neurons including the AFD neurons and is regulated by the TTX-1 OTX homeodomain protein [2]. On thermal gradients, dac-1 mutants fail to suppress a cryophilic drive but continue to track isotherms at the cultivation temperature, representing the first genetic separation of these AFD-mediated behaviors. Expression profiling of single neuron types provides a rapid, powerful, and unbiased method for identifying neuron-specific genes whose functions can then be investigated in vivo.
AB - Most C. elegans sensory neuron types consist of a single bilateral pair of neurons, and respond to a unique set of sensory stimuli. Although genes required for the development and function of individual sensory neuron types have been identified in forward genetic screens, these approaches are unlikely to identify genes that when mutated result in subtle or pleiotropic phenotypes. Here, we describe a complementary approach to identify sensory neuron type-specific genes via microarray analysis using RNA from sorted AWB olfactory and AFD thermosensory neurons. The expression patterns of subsets of these genes were further verified in vivo. Genes identified by this analysis encode 7-transmembrane receptors, kinases, and nuclear factors including dac-1, which encodes a homolog of the highly conserved Dachshund protein [1]. dac-1 is expressed in a subset of sensory neurons including the AFD neurons and is regulated by the TTX-1 OTX homeodomain protein [2]. On thermal gradients, dac-1 mutants fail to suppress a cryophilic drive but continue to track isotherms at the cultivation temperature, representing the first genetic separation of these AFD-mediated behaviors. Expression profiling of single neuron types provides a rapid, powerful, and unbiased method for identifying neuron-specific genes whose functions can then be investigated in vivo.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.cub.2004.12.030
DO - 10.1016/j.cub.2004.12.030
M3 - Article
C2 - 15620651
AN - SCOPUS:11144321614
SN - 0960-9822
VL - 14
SP - 2245
EP - 2251
JO - Current Biology
JF - Current Biology
IS - 24
ER -