Cell: interesting! There are different types of brain cells in male and female mice!

October 19, 2019 / BIOON / -- recently, an international magazine published in cell In the previous report, scientists from California Institute of technology and other institutions found rare brain cell types in male mice and another special type of brain cell in female mice These gender specific cells in special areas of the brain play a key role in controlling aggressive and mating behaviors Photo source: David Anderson, researcher of cc0 public domain, said that relevant research results show that there may be some differences in cell composition and gene expression level between male and female mammalian brains, but these differences are very subtle, and their functions and significance need further study There are many cell types in the brain, such as neuron cells that transmit signals and glial cells that support neural functions Although all of these cells contain the same set of genes (genome), there are some differences in gene expression between different cells We can think of the genome as a piano with 88 keys in each cell, and each cell will not use all 88 keys, so the key keys played by the cell determine the type of cell The hypothalamus is a special area in the brain of all vertebrates including human beings Previous studies have shown that the special anatomical area (vmhvl, ventrolateral area of ventromedial hypothalamus) in the hypothalamus contains cells that can control the aggressive and mating behaviors of the body In these studies, the neurons in the brain of male and female mice are strongly stimulated or can promote the mouse to become a mouse It's more aggressive (even if there's no threat), however, a small amount of stimulation promotes the mice to start mating In this study, the researchers analyzed the gene expression in a single cell in the vmhvl region Using advanced transcriptome technology, the researchers can identify the RNA transcripts contained in the cell, and they can use this information to identify different cell types In the previous study, the researchers analyzed 10% of the transcripts in each cell, while in this study, the researchers analyzed most of the RNA transcriptome They found that this small area contains 17 different types of brain cells More importantly, after the party analyzed the gene expression pattern, the researchers found that compared with the female mice, the male mouse body These 17 cell types are more abundant, while other cell types are more abundant in female mice There are different genes expressed in different sex mice Indeed, genetic testing can tell us the sex of a mouse However, the cell type found in this study may be neutral and specific cells in mammalian brain When the expression of a large number of genes varies from cell to cell, cells will be considered as different types of cells At the end of the day, the researchers said they needed more in-depth research to determine the function of these different cell types Original source: Dong wook Kim et al, multimodal analysis of cell types in a heterogeneous node controlling social behavior, cell (2019) Doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.09.020