Wang I-Hao, Murray Evan, Andrews Greg, Jiang Hao-Ching, Park Sung Jin, Donnard Elisa, Durán-Laforet Violeta, Bear Daniel M, Faust Travis E, Garber Manuel, Baer Christina E, Schafer Dorothy P, Weng Zhiping, Chen Fei, Macosko Evan Z, Greer Paul L
Program in Molecular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA.
Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Nat Neurosci. 2022 Apr;25(4):484-492. doi: 10.1038/s41593-022-01030-8. Epub 2022 Mar 21.
The olfactory system's ability to detect and discriminate between the vast array of chemicals present in the environment is critical for an animal's survival. In mammals, the first step of this odor processing is executed by olfactory sensory neurons, which project their axons to a stereotyped location in the olfactory bulb (OB) to form glomeruli. The stereotyped positioning of glomeruli in the OB suggests an importance for this organization in odor perception. However, because the location of only a limited subset of glomeruli has been determined, it has been challenging to determine the relationship between glomerular location and odor discrimination. Using a combination of single-cell RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics and machine learning, we have generated a map of most glomerular positions in the mouse OB. These observations significantly extend earlier studies and suggest an overall organizational principle in the OB that may be used by the brain to assist in odor decoding.
嗅觉系统检测和区分环境中大量化学物质的能力对动物的生存至关重要。在哺乳动物中,这种气味处理的第一步是由嗅觉感觉神经元执行的,这些神经元将它们的轴突投射到嗅球(OB)中一个固定的位置以形成肾小球。肾小球在OB中的固定定位表明这种组织在气味感知中具有重要性。然而,由于仅确定了有限子集的肾小球的位置,因此确定肾小球位置与气味辨别之间的关系一直具有挑战性。通过结合单细胞RNA测序、空间转录组学和机器学习,我们生成了小鼠OB中大多数肾小球位置的图谱。这些观察结果显著扩展了早期的研究,并提出了OB中的一个总体组织原则,大脑可能会利用该原则来协助气味解码。