Nature Communications: Research confirms for the first time the diversity of various neurons that govern movement

In vertebrates, motor control relies on spinal cholinergic neurons that have been extensively studied in the past century, but the complete heterogeneity of these neurons and their different functional roles in adults remain to be determined.

Recently, in a study published in Nature Communications, researchers discovered a targeted single-nuclear RNA sequencing method and used it to identify cholinergic interneurons, visceral motor neurons, and skeletal motor neurons.

Specifically, visceral motor neurons that provide autonomic nerve control can be divided into more than a dozen transcriptome categories, and are restricted anatomically along the spinal cord.

With the recent advances in sequencing technology, some studies have performed transcriptional analysis on individual spinal neurons during development and adulthood.

In this study, the researchers used a genetic strategy to permanently mark the cholinergic nuclei in the spinal cord of adult mice and selectively enrich them for single-nuclear RNA sequencing (snRNAseq).

Strategies for Sequencing Mononuclear RNA of Spinal Cholinergic Neurons

Based on the markers, the researchers determined and drew a map of various motor neurons along the spinal cord.

Spinal cord neurons are responsible for all types of movement of the body, from autonomous movements such as walking to the involuntary contraction and relaxation of the stomach as it processes its contents.

The findings of the study are the number of highly variable visceral motor neuron types that have not been noticed before.

It is worth mentioning that the study found that visceral MNs extend to the cervical spinal cord.

In addition, it describes the characteristics of a large group of cholinergic interneurons and shows an unexpected diversity.

The classification of cholinergic neurons shows a wide variety of motor neurons and interneurons.

Therefore, in order to gain genetic access to skeletal neurons in animal models, the field relies extensively on Chat-IRES-Cre mice, which are widely targeted at cholinergic neurons.

The ingenuity of the study is that the researchers used this strain to label cholinergic neurons, and used the snRNAseq method to describe the diversity of motor neurons, determine subtypes, and define a wide range of genes, which can be used for selective differentiation studies Many different types of adult cholinergic neurons have been discovered.

Article source :  Alkaslasi MR, Piccus ZE, Hareendran S, Silberberg H, Chen L, Zhang Y, Petros TJ, and Le Pichon CE.
Single nucleus RNA-sequencing defines diversity unexpected of cholinergic neuron types in the adult mouse spinal cord.
  Nature Communications ,  doi.
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1038/s41467-021-22691-2">DOI: 10.
1038/s41467-021-22691-2