NeuroPAL: A Multicolor Atlas for Whole-Brain Neuronal Identification in C. elegans

Overview

Journal Cell

Publisher Cell Press

Specialty Cell Biology

Date 2020 Dec 30

PMID 33378642

Citations 107

Authors

Eviatar Yemini

Albert Lin

Amin Nejatbakhsh

Erdem Varol

Ruoxi Sun

Gonzalo E Mena

Aravinthan D T Samuel

Liam Paninski

Vivek Venkatachalam

Oliver Hobert

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Comprehensively resolving neuronal identities in whole-brain images is a major challenge. We achieve this in C. elegans by engineering a multicolor transgene called NeuroPAL (a neuronal polychromatic atlas of landmarks). NeuroPAL worms share a stereotypical multicolor fluorescence map for the entire hermaphrodite nervous system that resolves all neuronal identities. Neurons labeled with NeuroPAL do not exhibit fluorescence in the green, cyan, or yellow emission channels, allowing the transgene to be used with numerous reporters of gene expression or neuronal dynamics. We showcase three applications that leverage NeuroPAL for nervous-system-wide neuronal identification. First, we determine the brainwide expression patterns of all metabotropic receptors for acetylcholine, GABA, and glutamate, completing a map of this communication network. Second, we uncover changes in cell fate caused by transcription factor mutations. Third, we record brainwide activity in response to attractive and repulsive chemosensory cues, characterizing multimodal coding for these stimuli.

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