Single-nucleus chromatin accessibility landscape reveals diversity in regulatory regions across distinct adult rat cortex

Rat models are commonly used as experimental tools to study human diseases and to perform pharmacological, psychological and behavioral studies, especially in relation to neurological disorders. Given those premises, it is paramount to discover new regulatory elements that drive the specificity of gene expression in different cell type and regions of the adult rat brain. We applied a single-cell ATAC-seq assay, DNBelab C Series, for systematic single cell profiling of chromatin openness from four dissected areas of adult Sprague Dawley (SD) rat brain. We obtained high-quality snATAC-seq data from 59,023 single nucleus and identified 16 distinct cell types with known functional. We found that different regions display divergence in the proportion of excitatory neurons cells and in gene expression profiles. We identified several transcription factors that could have important functions in relation to the pathogenesis of various neurological diseases. Out single-nucleus atlas of rat cortex could serve as a resource for dissecting the chromatin regulatory landscape of diverse rat brain cell types and assessing regulatory networks related to neuropathogenesis.