PBIO SEMINAR SERIES

Refining Functional Neuroanatomy Through a Genome-Wide Analysis of Gene Expression

Wednesday - January 18, 2006
05-06 SEMINAR SERIES

Ed Lein
Director, Neuroscience Allen Institute for Brain Science
Speaker's website

Host: Stan Froehner

The complete sequencing of the mouse genome has allowed a scaling up of histological techniques in ways that have great importance for our understanding of the functional cellular anatomy of the brain. The Allen Brain Atlas project has taken the approach of using high-throughput in situ hybridization to produce a genome-wide, cellular-resolution expression atlas of the adult mouse brain. Analysis of these data suggests a tremendous cellular diversity and combinatorial complexity of transcriptional regulation that give rise to phenotypic differences between different neuronal populations. Individual genes show striking local specificity for different cell populations, which lends great potential for targeted analysis and genetic manipulation of these discrete cell types. Furthermore, novel divisions of cytoarchitectural fields defined by gene expression suggest that there are functionally relevant subdivisions in a variety of brain regions that are not yet appreciated. Finally, the cellular and subcellular localization of transcripts allows predictions of gene function in some cases. This talk will focus largely on a focused analysis of gene expression in the hippocampus and neocortex.