近日，美国艾伦脑科学研究所Ed S. Lein及其研究团队揭示了在人类和小鼠皮层中保守细胞的不同特性。2019年8月22日，相关论文在线发表于《自然》。

研究人员利用单核RNA测序的方法对人类皮层颞中回细胞类型进行综合研究。他们发现高度多样化的兴奋性和抑制性神经元是稀少的，特别是兴奋性类型的层数限制比预期的要少。令人惊讶的是，与类似的小鼠皮质单细胞RNA测序数据库比较发现了人与小鼠间非常保守的细胞结构，利用这种保守细胞结构特征可以够匹配同源类型以及预测人类细胞类型的特性。 尽管存在这种一般保守性，研究人员还发现同源人和小鼠细胞类型之间存在广泛差异，包括比例显着改变，层状分布，基因表达和形态学。这些物种特有的特征强调了直接研究人类大脑的重要性。

据悉，阐明人类大脑皮层的细胞结构对于理解我们的认知能力和对疾病的易感性至关重要。

附：英文原文

Title: Conserved cell types with divergent features in human versus mouse cortex

Author: Rebecca D. Hodge, Trygve E. Bakken, Jeremy A. Miller, Kimberly A. Smith, Eliza R. Barkan, Lucas T. Graybuck, Jennie L. Close, Brian Long, Nelson Johansen, Osnat Penn, Zizhen Yao, Jeroen Eggermont, Thomas Hllt, Boaz P. Levi, Soraya I. Shehata, Brian Aevermann, Allison Beller, Darren Bertagnolli, Krissy Brouner, Tamara Casper, Charles Cobbs, Rachel Dalley, Nick Dee, Song-Lin Ding, Richard G. Ellenbogen, Olivia Fong, Emma Garren, Jeff Goldy, Ryder P. Gwinn, Daniel Hirschstein, C. Dirk Keene, Mohamed Keshk, Andrew L. Ko, Kanan Lathia, Ahmed Mahfouz, Zoe Maltzer, Medea McGraw, Thuc Nghi Nguyen, Julie Nyhus, Jeffrey G. Ojemann, Aaron Oldre, Sheana Parry, Shannon Reynolds, Christine Rimorin, Nadiya V. Shapovalova, Saroja Somasundaram, Aaron Szafer, Elliot R. Thomsen, Michael Tieu, Gerald Quon, Richard H. Scheuermann, Rafael Yuste, Susan M. Sunkin, Boudewijn Lelieveldt, David Feng, Lydia Ng, Amy Bernard, Michael Hawrylycz, John W. Phillips, Bosiljka Tasic, Hongkui Zeng, Allan R. Jones, Christof Koch, Ed S. Lein

Issue&Volume: 2019-08-21

Abstract: Elucidating the cellular architecture of the human cerebral cortex is central to understanding our cognitive abilities and susceptibility to disease. Here we used single-nucleus RNA-sequencing analysis to perform a comprehensive study of cell types in the middle temporal gyrus of human cortex. We identified a highly diverse set of excitatory and inhibitory neuron types that are mostly sparse, with excitatory types being less layer-restricted than expected. Comparison to similar mouse cortex single-cell RNA-sequencing datasets revealed a surprisingly well-conserved cellular architecture that enables matching of homologous types and predictions of properties of human cell types. Despite this general conservation, we also found extensive differences between homologous human and mouse cell types, including marked alterations in proportions, laminar distributions, gene expression and morphology. These species-specific features emphasize the importance of directly studying human brain.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1506-7

Source:https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1506-7