Cell heavy interpretation! Scientists have succeeded in analyzing the mysteries of the body's intestinal nervous system at single-cell resolution!

September 29, 2020 // -- A broader array of neurons embedded throughout the gastrointestinal system coordinates almost all activities, including digestion, intestinal movement, and reactions to harmful stimuli, which form the intestinal nervous system (ENS, enteric nervous system) and transmit signals to the brain, but are rare and In a recent study published in the international journal Cell entitled "The Human and Mouse Enteric Nervous System at Single-Cell Resolution," scientists from the MIT Bode Institute and others overcame this problem by developing a new way to produce single-cell maps of ENS in humans and mice.
By analyzing the genetic activity of these single neuron cells, the researchers speculate that neurons in the gut can communicate with a variety of other cell types, including immune cells, that express key genes associated with disease; ENS may be a key node connecting the gut, immune system, and central nervous system, playing a crucial role in intestinal allergies, inflammation and intestinal movement disorders, and diseases affecting the brain.
study of these types of neuro-immune interactions is the next phase of the Food Allergy Science Program, which aims to find ways to understand how food allergies occur and encourage researchers to develop new treatments for allergies.
photo source: Eugene Drokhlyansky, Chris Smillie, Nicholas Van Wittenberghe, Leah Caplan researcher Ramnik Xavier says that by understanding what's happening in the ENS system, we can better understand how the system communicates with endosperm, immune cells and other cells, while also developing new therapies to treat system failures.
studying the properties of neurons in the gut has long been a challenge, in part because intestinal neurons are so rare and fragile that researchers often have difficulty studying the properties of intestinal neurons because they are difficult to separate from surrounding tissues.
To overcome these obstacles, the researchers designed two zinc methods to study ENS in mice and human bodies at a single cell resolution, using RAISIN RNA sequencing technology and MIRACL sequencing, a laboratory step that isolates individual cells, retains both the nuclei and the attached rna, allows them to fully observe RNA in cells, and helps researchers more effectively search for rare cell types and collect samples after dissociation complex tissue.
These techniques eventually helped researchers analyze 5,068 mouse and 1,445 human intestinal neuron cells, as well as a detailed analysis of multiple intestinal cell types from both species, which were later applied to fresh and frozen tissue samples and used to analyze the characteristics of other rare cell types outside the gut.
researcher Orit Rozenblatt-Rosen points out that now we can use new technologies to help build and confirm complete images/images of the intestinal nervous system, and the data can help us understand the role of the gut nervous system in the onset of multiple diseases, and to pinpoint the specific cell types that play a role in the genetic risk factors for these diseases.
Researchers found dozens of different sub-groups of neuron cells in the intestinal nervous system and found that cell composition and gene expression vary depending on the intestinal anatomy region, age, and even the timing of sampling; Cell path, the association between intestinal neuron cells and the immune system may help scientists later study how the nervous system involved in the development of gastrointestinal diseases works, and why patients with central nervous system-specific disorders such as autism spectrum disorders and Parkinson's disease use intestinal dysfunction as an early symptom of the patient's onset.
researchers say studying intestinal neuron cells may help understand the pathogenesis of a variety of diseases, including irritable bowel syndrome, intestinal allergic diseases and unexplained intestinal neuropathy; Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, all of which occur in a very short period of time, suggest that intestinal neuron cells may perceive something wrong and activate an early warning system that targets these intestinal neuron cells or can help develop new treatments that slow the body's allergies to food and other allergens.
() References: A single-cell atlas of nerve cells in the gut reveals web of connectionsby Karen Zusi, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (2) Eugene Drokhlyansky, Christopher S. Smillie, Nicholas Van Wittenberghe, et al. The Human and Mouse Enteric Nervous System at Single-Cell Resolution, Cell (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.08.003.