A dual-strategy expression screen for candidate connectivity labels in the developing thalamus.

ABSTRACT: The thalamus or "inner chamber" of the brain is divided into ~30 discrete nuclei, with highly specific patterns of afferent and efferent connectivity. To identify genes that may direct these patterns of connectivity, we used two strategies. First, we used a bioinformatics pipeline to survey the predicted proteomes of nematode, fruitfly, mouse and human for extracellular proteins containing any of a list of motifs found in known guidance or connectivity molecules. Second, we performed clustering analyses on the Allen Developing Mouse Brain Atlas data to identify genes encoding surface proteins expressed with temporal profiles similar to known guidance or connectivity molecules. In both cases, we then screened the resultant genes for selective expression patterns in the developing thalamus.

SUBMITTER: Bibollet-Bahena O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5448750 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature