1. Developmental Biology
  2. Neuroscience

Transcriptional heterogeneity of ventricular zone cells in the ganglionic eminences of the mouse forebrain

  1. Dongjin R Lee
  2. Christopher Rhodes
  3. Apratim Mitra
  4. Yajun Zhang
  5. Dragan Maric
  6. Ryan K Dale
  7. Timothy J Petros  Is a corresponding author
  1. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, United States
  2. National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke, United States
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71864
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  1. Dongjin R Lee
  2. Christopher Rhodes
  3. Apratim Mitra
  4. Yajun Zhang
  5. Dragan Maric
  6. Ryan K Dale
  7. Timothy J Petros
(2022)
Transcriptional heterogeneity of ventricular zone cells in the ganglionic eminences of the mouse forebrain
eLife 11:e71864.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71864
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Abstract

The ventricular zone (VZ) of the nervous system contains radial glia cells that were originally considered relatively homogenous in their gene expression, but a detailed characterization of transcriptional diversity in these VZ cells has not been reported. Here, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing to characterize transcriptional heterogeneity of neural progenitors within the VZ and subventricular zone (SVZ) of the ganglionic eminences (GEs), the source of all forebrain GABAergic neurons. By using a transgenic mouse line to enrich for VZ cells, we characterize significant transcriptional heterogeneity, both between GEs and within spatial subdomains of specific GEs. Additionally, we observe differential gene expression between E12.5 and E14.5 VZ cells, which could provide insights into temporal changes in cell fate. Together, our results reveal a previously unknown spatial and temporal genetic diversity of VZ cells in the ventral forebrain that will aid our understanding of initial fate decisions in the forebrain.

Data availability

All of our sequencing data has been deposited in GEO under accession code GSE167013 and GSE190593.

The following data sets were generated
The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Dongjin R Lee

    Unit on Cellular and Molecular Neurodevelopment, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  2. Christopher Rhodes

    Unit on Cellular and Molecular Neurodevelopment, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7438-4236

  3. Apratim Mitra

    Bioinformatics and Scientific Programming Core, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Yajun Zhang

    Unit on Cellular and Molecular Neurodevelopment, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  5. Dragan Maric

    Flow and Imaging Cytometry Core, National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  6. Ryan K Dale

    Bioinformatics and Scientific Programming Core, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  7. Timothy J Petros

    Unit on Cellular and Molecular Neurodevelopment, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, United States
    For correspondence
    tim.petros@nih.gov
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8943-546X

Funding

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Intramural Award)

  • Timothy J Petros

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All mouse colonies were maintained in accordance with protocols approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under animal study protocol ASP #20-047.

Copyright

This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.

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  1. Dongjin R Lee
  2. Christopher Rhodes
  3. Apratim Mitra
  4. Yajun Zhang
  5. Dragan Maric
  6. Ryan K Dale
  7. Timothy J Petros
(2022)
Transcriptional heterogeneity of ventricular zone cells in the ganglionic eminences of the mouse forebrain
eLife 11:e71864.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71864

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71864

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