A phosphate transporter in VIPergic neurons of the suprachiasmatic nucleus gates locomotor activity during the light/dark transition in mice

The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) encodes time of day through changes in daily firing, with neurons being generally more active during the day and more silent at night. However, molecular mechanisms by which the SCN encodes and times behavior are not fully understood. To identify factors that could encode day/night differences in activity we combined patch-clamp recordings and single-cell sequencing (Patch-RNAseq) of individual SCN neurons in mice. Mice were entrained to a 12:12 light dark cycle (LD 12:12, 12h light, 12h dark) and SCN slices were prepared either at ~ZT0 (for day active neurons) or ~ZT12 (for night active neurons). Multiple recordings and RNA collections were made from the same SCN slice to capture neuronal activity and gene expression. After each recording lasting several minutes, the cytoplasm of the neuron was collected and processed for single-cell RNAseq