Mus musculus strain:C57/BL6 Transcriptome or Gene expression

In this study we analyzed the transcriptomes of individual Tas1r3-GFP, Lgr5-GFP, Gustducin-GFP, Gad1-GFP expressing and type III taste cells from the taste papillae of mice using single-cell RNA-Seq. The GFP expressing taste cells were isolated from respective GFP-transgenic mice while Type III cells were isolated based on their response to KCl stimulus measured using fura-2 calcium imaging. We standardized the methods for single cell RNA-Seq analysis of taste cells isolated using calcium imaging protocol and GFP fluorescence. We identified several novel genes and pathways specifically expressed in these important taste cell subtypes. Our study paves the way for comprehensive analysis of the taste transcriptome at the single-cell level. Also,the methods we developed can be used for single -cell RNA-Seq analysis of any cell type identified by calcium imaging protocols, which often affects cell health and RNA quality. This is valuable in cases where cells cannot be identified based on unambiguous morphological criteria or where GFP reporters are not available.