Phenotypic variation of transcriptomic cell types in mouse motor cortex

• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2907-3
• Publication Date: 2020-11-12T17:05:45Z
• Authors: Federico Scala; Dmitry Kobak; Matteo Bernabucci; Yves Bernaerts; Cathryn René Cadwell; Jesus Ramon Castro; Leonard Hartmanis; Xiaolong Jiang; Sophie Laturnus; Elanine Miranda; Shalaka Mulherkar; Zheng Huan Tan; Zizhen Yao; Hongkui Zeng; Rickard Sandberg; Philipp Berens; Andreas S. Tolias
• Keywords: Neocortex; Cell type

Abstract Cortical neurons exhibit extreme diversity in gene expression as well morphological and electrophysiological properties 1,2 . Most existing neural taxonomies are based on either transcriptomic 3,4 or morpho-electric 5,6 criteria, it has been technically challenging to study both aspects of neuronal the same set cells 7 Here we used Patch-seq 8 combine patch-clamp recording, biocytin staining, single-cell RNA sequencing more than 1,300 adult mouse primary motor cortex, providing a annotation almost all transcriptomically defined cell types. We found that, although broad families types (those expressing Vip , Pvalb Sst so on) had distinct essentially non-overlapping phenotypes, individual within family were not separated space. Instead, there was continuum variability morphology electrophysiology, with neighbouring showing similar features, often without clear boundaries between them. Our results suggest that neocortex do always form discrete entities. hierarchy consists branches at level families, but can continuous correlated morpho-electrical landscapes families.