A FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS GUIDE TO IDENTIFY
NEURONS
Identifying the neuronal
cell types in the mammalian forebrain is a central unsolved problem in basic
neuroscience, and our understanding of brain physiology is limited by our
inability to identify and classify its neurons. A new study uses a functional
genomics approach to identify the molecular basis of neuronal identity (Ken Sugino et al.,
Molecular taxonomy of major neuronal classes in the adult mouse forebrain. Nature
Neurosience 9, 99-107, 2005).
Global gene expression
offers a potentially unbiased way to asses functional relationships between
neurons. The authors constructed a taxonomic tree that indicated highly
heterogeneous gene expression even within a single region. Their dataset is
useful for the classification of unknown neuronal subtypes, the investigation
of specifically expressed genes and the genetic manipulation of specific
neuronal circuit elements.