GMU-GIBH Joint School of Life Sciences, The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Joint Laboratory for Cell Fate Regulation and Diseases, Guangzhou National Laboratory, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Bioland Laboratory (Guangzhou Regenerative Medicine and Health Guangdong Laboratory), Guangzhou, China.
Nat Genet. 2024 Jul;56(7):1503-1515. doi: 10.1038/s41588-024-01781-z. Epub 2024 Jun 4.
Unlike megabats, which rely on well-developed vision, microbats use ultrasonic echolocation to navigate and locate prey. To study ultrasound perception, here we compared the auditory cortices of microbats and megabats by constructing reference genomes and single-nucleus atlases for four species. We found that parvalbumin (PV) neurons exhibited evident cross-species differences and could respond to ultrasound signals, whereas their silencing severely affected ultrasound perception in the mouse auditory cortex. Moreover, megabat PV neurons expressed low levels of complexins (CPLX1-CPLX4), which can facilitate neurotransmitter release, while microbat PV neurons highly expressed CPLX1, which improves neurotransmission efficiency. Further perturbation of Cplx1 in PV neurons impaired ultrasound perception in the mouse auditory cortex. In addition, CPLX1 functioned in other parts of the auditory pathway in microbats but not megabats and exhibited convergent evolution between echolocating microbats and whales. Altogether, we conclude that CPLX1 expression throughout the entire auditory pathway can enhance mammalian ultrasound neurotransmission.
与依赖高度发达的视觉的大蝙蝠不同,小蝙蝠利用超声波回声定位来导航和定位猎物。为了研究超声感知,我们通过构建四个物种的参考基因组和单细胞图谱,比较了小蝙蝠和大蝙蝠的听觉皮层。我们发现,钙结合蛋白(PV)神经元表现出明显的跨物种差异,并能对超声波信号做出反应,而它们的沉默严重影响了小鼠听觉皮层对超声波的感知。此外,大蝙蝠的 PV 神经元表达低水平的突触结合蛋白(CPLX1-CPLX4),可以促进神经递质的释放,而小蝙蝠的 PV 神经元则高度表达 CPLX1,这提高了神经传递的效率。进一步敲除 PV 神经元中的 Cplx1 会损害小鼠听觉皮层对超声波的感知。此外,CPLX1 在小蝙蝠的听觉通路的其他部分起作用,但在大蝙蝠中不起作用,并且在回声定位的小蝙蝠和鲸鱼之间表现出趋同进化。总的来说,我们得出结论,CPLX1 在整个听觉通路上的表达可以增强哺乳动物对超声波的神经传递。