Characterization of striatal neurons in Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy individuals using scRNA-seq

The goal was to define the cellular subpopulation structure in the striatum of humans and the characterization of the functional and pathologic changes associated with nigro-striatal denervation and L-dopa treatment for striatal neurons and interneurons. Therefore, after isolation of NeunN-expressing nuclei from fresh-frozen striatal tissues (putamen and caudate nucleus), nuclei were used to generate single-cell transcriptomes using a commercial microwell-based assay. After library preparation and sequencing, the generated data were further processed and aligned against the reference genome. Gene expression matrixes are provided which can be further analyzed and overlaid with synaptic maps and organization, microanatomical and physiological data, and integrated for the generation of a human brain atlas.