A switch from neuronal network development to maintenance during postnatal development of rat prefrontal cortex

To unravel the gene expression changes during postnatal prefrontal cortex development, RNA-seq was performed in the rat medial prefrontal cortex at five time points from early life to adulthood (postnatal day 8, 14, 21, 35 and 70) and differential expression of protein-coding genes, lincRNAs and alternative exons was analyzed. A switch from neuronal network development to maintenance during postnatal rat prefrontal cortex development was shown.为阐明出生后前额叶皮层发育过程中的基因表达变化，研究团队对大鼠内侧前额叶皮层在从幼年期至成年期的五个时间节点（出生后第8、14、21、35和70天）开展了RNA测序（RNA-seq）实验，并对蛋白编码基因、基因间长链非编码RNA（lincRNAs）以及可变外显子的差异表达水平进行了分析。研究揭示，在大鼠出生后前额叶皮层的发育进程中，存在神经元网络构建向维持状态的转换过程。