Cross-species transcriptomic comparison of in vitro and in vivo mammalian neural cells

We report the first RNA profiing of mammalian neural cells grown in vitro. About 50 million reads are generated by RNA-seq from rat astrocytes, neurons and oligodendrocyte precursor cells in primary culture. These data are compared with theose generated from the correponding mouse neural cells that are acutely purified from brains. Cross-species RNA-seq data analysis revealed hundreds of genes that are differentially expressed between cultured and acutely purified cells. Astrocytes have more such genes compared to neurons and oligodendrocyte precursor cells, indicating that signalling pathways are greatly perturbed in cultured astrocytes. Overall design: mRNA profiles of rat astrocytes, neurons and oligodendrocyte precursor cells cultured in vitro