Single-cell transcriptional analysis of taste sensory neuron pair in Caenorhabditis elegans.

ABSTRACT: The nervous system is composed of a wide variety of neurons. A description of the transcriptional profiles of each neuron would yield enormous information about the molecular mechanisms that define morphological or functional characteristics. Here we show that RNA isolation from single neurons is feasible by using an optimized mRNA tagging method. This method extracts transcripts in the target cells by co-immunoprecipitation of the complexes of RNA and epitope-tagged poly(A) binding protein expressed specifically in the cells. With this method and genome-wide microarray, we compared the transcriptional profiles of two functionally different neurons in the main C. elegans gustatory neuron class ASE. Eight of the 13 known subtype-specific genes were successfully detected. Additionally, we id

SUBMITTER: Takayama J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2800226 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature