Project description:Nausea, the unpleasant sensation of visceral malaise, remains a mysterious process. The area postrema is implicated in some nausea responses, and contains poorly understood brain-resident sensory neurons that are anatomically privileged to detect bloodborne signals. To investigate nausea mechanisms, we built an area postrema cell atlas through single-nucleus RNA sequencing, revealing a few neuron types. Using mouse genetic tools for cell-specific manipulation, we discovered excitatory neurons that induce nausea-related behaviors, with one neuron type mediating aversion imposed by multiple poisons. Nausea-associated responses were observed to agonists of identified area postrema receptors, and suppressed by targeted cell ablation and/or gene knockout. Anatomical mapping revealed a distributed network of long-range excitatory but not inhibitory projections with subtype-specific patterning. These studies reveal the basic organization of area postrema nausea circuitry, and provide a framework towards understanding and therapeutically controlling nausea.
Project description:Nausea, the unpleasant sensation of visceral malaise, remains a mysterious process. The area postrema is implicated in some nausea responses and is anatomically privileged to detect blood-borne signals. To investigate nausea mechanisms, we built an area postrema cell atlas through single-nucleus RNA sequencing, revealing a few neuron types. Using mouse genetic tools for cell-specific manipulation, we discovered excitatory neurons that induce nausea-related behaviors, with one neuron type mediating aversion imposed by multiple poisons. Nausea-associated responses to agonists of identified area postrema receptors were observed and suppressed by targeted cell ablation and/or gene knockout. Anatomical mapping revealed a distributed network of long-range excitatory but not inhibitory projections with subtype-specific patterning. These studies reveal the basic organization of area postrema nausea circuitry and provide a framework toward understanding and therapeutically controlling nausea.
Project description:We performed single-nuclei RNAseq of Sprague Dawley rat area postrema and nucleus tractus solitarius brain samples to identify cellular subtypes.
Project description:We performed single-nuclei RNAseq of Sprague Dawley rat area postrema and nucleus tractus solitarius brain samples from animals treated with GDF-15 to identify cellular subtype specific changes in the neural transcriptome.
Project description:We performed single-nuclei RNAseq of Sprague Dawley rat area postrema and nucleus tractus solitarius brain samples from animals treated with cisplatin to identify cellular subtype specific changes in the neural transcriptome.
Project description:The area postrema (AP) is a sensory circumventricular organ characterised by extensive fenestrated vasculature and neurons which are capable of detecting circulating signals of osmotic, cardiovascular, immune and metabolic status. The AP can communicate these messages via efferent projections to brainstem and hypothalamic structures that are able to orchestrate an appropriate response. We have used microarrays to profile the transcriptome of the AP in the Sprague Dawley (SD) and Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rat and present here a comprehensive catalogue of gene expression, focussing specifically on the population of ion channels, receptors and G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) expressed in this sensory tissue; of the GPCRs expressed in the rat AP we identified ~36% that are orphans having no established ligand. We have also looked at the ways in which the AP transcriptome responds to the physiological stressors of 72-hours dehydration (DSD) and 48-hours fasting (FSD) and have performed microarrays under these conditions. Comparison between the DSD and SD or between FSD and SD revealed only a modest number of AP genes that are regulated by these homeostatic challenges. The expression levels of a much larger number of genes are altered in the spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) AP compared to the normotensive WKY controls however. Finally, analysis of these ‘hypertension-related’ elements revealed genes that are involved in both the regulation of blood pressure and immune function and as such are excellent targets for further study. Using Affymetrix microarrays (Rat 230:2.0) we anaysed the transcriptome of the area postrema. Each microarray in the study represents an independent biological replicate of 5 animals.