Tukker Anke M, Bowman Aaron B
School of Health Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
Curr Opin Toxicol. 2024 Mar;37. doi: 10.1016/j.cotox.2023.100458. Epub 2023 Dec 27.
Neurotoxicological research faces the challenge of linking biological changes resulting from exposures to neuronal function. An additional challenge is understanding cell-type specific differences and selective vulnerabilities of distinct neuronal populations to toxic insults. Single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) allows for measurement of the transcriptome of individual cells. This makes it a valuable tool for validating and characterizing cell types present in multicell type samples in complex tissue or cell culture models, but also for understanding how different cell types respond to toxic insults. Pathway analysis of differentially expressed genes can provide in depth insights into underlying cell type-specific mechanisms of neurotoxicity. Toxicological data often has to be translated to outcomes for human health which requires an understanding of inter-species differences. Transcriptomic data aids in understanding these differences, including understanding developmental timelines of different species. We believe that scRNA-seq holds exciting promises for future neurotoxicological research.
神经毒理学研究面临着将接触所导致的生物学变化与神经元功能联系起来的挑战。另一个挑战是理解不同神经元群体对毒性损伤的细胞类型特异性差异和选择性易损性。单细胞RNA测序（scRNA-seq）能够测量单个细胞的转录组。这使其成为一种有价值的工具，不仅可用于验证和表征复杂组织或细胞培养模型中多细胞类型样本中存在的细胞类型，还可用于了解不同细胞类型对毒性损伤的反应。对差异表达基因进行通路分析能够深入洞察神经毒性潜在的细胞类型特异性机制。毒理学数据常常需要转化为对人类健康的影响结果，这就需要了解种间差异。转录组学数据有助于理解这些差异，包括了解不同物种的发育时间线。我们相信，scRNA-seq在未来的神经毒理学研究中有着令人兴奋的前景。
