Transcriptional profiling of dental sensory and proprioceptive trigeminal neurons using single-cell RNA sequencing.

ABSTRACT: Dental primary afferent (DPA) neurons and proprioceptive mesencephalic trigeminal nucleus (MTN) neurons, located in the trigeminal ganglion and the brainstem, respectively, are essential for controlling masticatory functions. Despite extensive transcriptomic studies on various somatosensory neurons, there is still a lack of knowledge about the molecular identities of these populations due to technical challenges in their circuit-validated isolation. Here, we employed high-depth single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) in combination with retrograde tracing in mice to identify intrinsic transcriptional features of DPA and MTN neurons. Our transcriptome analysis revealed five major types of DPA neurons with cell type-specific gene enrichment, some of which exhibit unique mechano-nociceptive pr

SUBMITTER: Lee PR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10519964 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature