Transcriptomic changes in parvalbumin positive interneurons from cortex and striatum.. Mus musculus

This experiment was designed to compare the transcriptomic differences between two parvalbumin (PV) interneuron population of the mouse brain. These two populations have the same embryological origin and share several neurochemical and electrophysiological properties, but differ in their ability to express the glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor GDNF (negative in cortex and positive in striatum). Two different reporters for PV expressing cells were used: i) a constitutive tdTomato gene inserted in the Pvalb locus, and ii) a PV-Cre; tdTomato model in which fluorescent cells are PV cells expressing Cre recombinase. The comparative gene expression analysis between PV neurons captured from striatum and cortex allowed unraveling differential molecular characteristics of GDNF-synthesizing striatal PV interneurons and their potential role in endogenous GDNF modulation. The specific expression of several genes of interest in the striatal PV interneurons has been validated by other methods (real-time RT-PCR, in situ hibridization, immunohistochemistry). Overall design: Parvalbumin-positive interneurons were obtained from two postnatal day 30 mouse brains: PVCre; tdTomato (N = 4) or PV-tdTomato mice (N = 4). Cells from two different brain regions (CTX or ST) were mechanically and enzymatically dissociated and then sorted by FACS. RNA was extracted from 2000 cells / replicate. RNA was amplified and hybridized with Affymetrix GeneChip Mouse Transcriptome 1.0 Arrays. Due to the low yield, cells from 2 to 4 mice were pooled to reach a total number of 2000 cells required for RNA isolation.