Liu Weiwei, Li Qiye
State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China; Yunnan Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Information, Kunming, China.
BGI Research, Shenzhen 518083, China; BGI Research, Wuhan 430074, China; College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Curr Opin Insect Sci. 2024 Jun;63:101201. doi: 10.1016/j.cois.2024.101201. Epub 2024 Apr 10.
Insects can display a vast repertoire of complex and adaptive behaviors crucial for survival and reproduction. Yet, how the neural circuits underlying insect behaviors are assembled throughout development and remodeled during evolution remains largely obscure. The advent of single-cell transcriptomics has opened new paths to illuminate these historically intractable questions. Insect behavior is governed by its brain, whose functional complexity is realized through operations across multiple levels, from the molecular and cellular to the circuit and organ. Single-cell transcriptomics enables dissecting brain functions across all these levels and allows tracking regulatory dynamics throughout development and under perturbation. In this review, we mainly focus on the achievements of single-cell transcriptomics in dissecting the molecular and cellular architectures of nervous systems in representative insects, then discuss its applications in tracking the developmental trajectory and functional evolution of insect brains.
昆虫能够展现出大量对于生存和繁殖至关重要的复杂且适应性行为。然而，昆虫行为背后的神经回路在整个发育过程中是如何组装的，以及在进化过程中是如何重塑的，在很大程度上仍不清楚。单细胞转录组学的出现为阐明这些历来难以解决的问题开辟了新途径。昆虫行为受其大脑支配，大脑的功能复杂性是通过从分子和细胞到回路和器官的多个层面的运作来实现的。单细胞转录组学能够剖析所有这些层面的大脑功能，并允许追踪整个发育过程以及受到扰动时的调控动态。在这篇综述中，我们主要关注单细胞转录组学在剖析代表性昆虫神经系统的分子和细胞结构方面的成就，然后讨论其在追踪昆虫大脑发育轨迹和功能进化方面的应用。
