The gene expression landscape of the human locus coeruleus revealed by single-nucleus and spatially-resolved transcriptomics

• DOI: 10.7554/elife.84628.2
• Publication Date: 2023-12-05T15:39:08Z
• Authors: Lukas M. Weber; Heena R. Divecha; Matthew N. Tran; Sang Ho Kwon; Abby Spangler; Kelsey D. Montgomery; Madhavi Tippani; Rahul Bharadwaj; Joel E. Kleinman; Stephanie C. Page; Thomas M. Hyde; Leonardo Collado-...; Kristen R. Maynard; Keri Martinowich; Stephanie C. Hicks
• Keywords: Central Nervous System; 0301 basic medicine; 0303 health sciences; locus coeruleus; QH301-705.5; postmortem human tissue; Science; Gene Expression Profiling; Q; R; Gene Expression; Genetics and Genomics; spatially-resolved transcriptomics; norepinephrine; 3. Good health; Norepinephrine; 03 medical and health sciences; Solitary Nucleus; Medicine; Humans; Locus Coeruleus; Biology (General); single-nucleus RNA-sequencing

Abstract Norepinephrine (NE) neurons in the locus coeruleus (LC) make long-range projections throughout the central nervous system, playing critical roles in arousal and mood, as well as various components of cognition including attention, learning, and memory. The LC-NE system is also implicated in multiple neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. Importantly, LC-NE neurons are highly sensitive to degeneration in both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Despite the clinical importance of the brain region and the prominent role of LC-NE neurons in a variety of brain and behavioral functions, a detailed molecular characterization of the LC is lacking. Here, we used a combination of spatially-resolved transcriptomics and single-nucleus RNA-sequencing to characterize the molecular landscape of the LC region and the transcriptomic profile of LC-NE neurons in the human brain. We provide a freely accessible resource of these data in web-accessible and downloadable formats.