小柯机器人

近日，美国麻省大学医学院Paul L. Greer及其小组通过小鼠嗅小球的空间转录组图谱揭示气味处理的原则。这一研究成果于2022年3月21日在线发表在国际学术期刊《自然—神经科学》上。

利用单细胞RNA测序、空间转录组学和机器学习的结合，研究人员生成了小鼠嗅球（OB）中大多数嗅小球的位置图。这些观察结果大大扩展了早期的研究，并提出了OB中的一个整体组织原则，该原则可能被大脑用来协助气味解码。

据悉，嗅觉系统探测和区分环境中存在的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，它们将轴突投射到OB的一个固定位置，形成嗅小球。嗅球中嗅小球的固定定位表明这一组织在气味知觉中的重要性。然而，由于只有有限的嗅小球位置被确定，确定嗅小球的位置和气味辨别之间的关系一直是一个挑战。

附：英文原文

Title: Spatial transcriptomic reconstruction of the mouse olfactory glomerular map suggests principles of odor processing

Author: Wang, I-Hao, Murray, Evan, Andrews, Greg, Jiang, Hao-Ching, Park, Sung Jin, Donnard, Elisa, Durn-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.

Issue&Volume: 2022-03-21

Abstract: 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.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-022-01030-8

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-022-01030-8

Nature Neuroscience：《自然—神经科学》，创刊于1998年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：28.771
官方网址：https://www.nature.com/neuro/
投稿链接：https://mts-nn.nature.com/cgi-bin/main.plex