Expression profile of adult mouse POA/BF regions

The adult mammalian brain is composed of distinct regions that have specialized roles. The BF/POA regions are thought to have an important role in the regulation of sleep/wake behavior. However, genetic markers of the responsible cells for the regulation of sleep/wake behavior are largely unknown. To identify the molecular markers of the BF/POA regions, we sampled the BF/POA regions and compared gene expression in the BF/POA regions with those of other brain regions which we previously reported in the BrainStars (B*) project, in which we sampled ~50 small brain regions, including sensory centers and centers for motion, time, memory, fear, and feeding. We sampled each region every 4 hours for 24 hours, and pooled the sample sets for DNA-microarray assays. We then used informatics to identify candidates for genes with high or low expression in the BF/POA regions. We used our findings to develop an integrated database (http://poabf.brainstars.org/) for exploring genome-wide expression in the adult mouse brain including the BF/POA regions. For the BF/POA regions, slices (0.5-mm thick) of mouse brain were cut on a Mouse Brain Matrix, frozen, and the BF/POA regions were punched out bilaterally with a microdissecting needle (gauge 0.5 mm) under a stereomicroscope. We took samples every 4 hours, starting at ZT0 (Zeitgaber time 0; the time of lights on), for 24 hours (6 time-point samples for each region), and we pooled the samples from the different time points. We independently sampled each region twice (n=2).