Aplysia sensory neuron processes transcriptome

Aplysia californica is one of key models to study cellular bases of behavior and plasticity. Its central nervous system composed of ~10,000 neurons most of them are unique and individually identifiable. The Aplysia neurons are so large process from cells in culture can be isolated.Here, we performed transcriptome analysis of the processes of sensory neurons using pyrosequencing approach. Specifically, we developed a reduced representation sequencing method that can detect low abundant transcripts. Our method greatly reduces the amount of sequencing with more accurate quantification. Basically, sequential addition of adaptors paired with controlled digestion of cDNA generates a one transcript on read type of analysis. Combined 5’ with 3’ targeted libraries produces greater coverage of individual transcripts and high quality assembly. Our initial analysis allowed us to identify several thousands of transcripts (many of them are unique) including a diversity of receptors and transcription factors in the processes of sensory neurons.