Frontier Science Center for Disease Molecular Network, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, 610041, Chengdu, China.
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Peking University Third Hospital, 100191, Beijing, China.
Nat Commun. 2020 Jan 24;11(1):474. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-14368-z.
The rhesus macaque is a prime model animal in neuroscience. A comprehensive transcriptomic and open chromatin atlas of the rhesus macaque brain is key to a deeper understanding of the brain. Here we characterize the transcriptome of 416 brain samples from 52 regions of 8 rhesus macaque brains. We identify gene modules associated with specific brain regions like the cerebral cortex, pituitary, and thalamus. In addition, we discover 9703 novel intergenic transcripts, including 1701 coding transcripts and 2845 lncRNAs. Most of the novel transcripts are only expressed in specific brain regions or cortical regions of specific individuals. We further survey the open chromatin regions in the hippocampal CA1 and several cerebral cortical regions of the rhesus macaque brain using ATAC-seq, revealing CA1- and cortex-specific open chromatin regions. Our results add to the growing body of knowledge regarding the baseline transcriptomic and open chromatin profiles in the brain of the rhesus macaque.
恒河猴是神经科学的主要模式动物。恒河猴大脑的综合转录组和开放染色质图谱是深入了解大脑的关键。在这里，我们对来自 8 只恒河猴大脑的 52 个区域的 416 个脑组织样本的转录组进行了描述。我们确定了与大脑特定区域（如大脑皮层、垂体和丘脑）相关的基因模块。此外，我们发现了 9703 个新的基因间转录本，包括 1701 个编码转录本和 2845 个 lncRNA。大多数新的转录本仅在特定的大脑区域或特定个体的皮质区域表达。我们进一步使用 ATAC-seq 调查了恒河猴大脑海马 CA1 和几个大脑皮质区域的开放染色质区域，揭示了 CA1 和皮质特异性的开放染色质区域。我们的研究结果为恒河猴大脑的基础转录组和开放染色质图谱提供了更多的知识。
