Analysis of the Neuron-specific IIS/FOXO Transcriptome in Aged Animals Reveals Regulators of Neuronal and Cognitive Aging

In this study, we used C. elegans to investigate the impact of the IIS/FOXO pathway on age-related cognitive decline. To determine the mechanisms by which aging daf-2 mutants can maintain cognitive abilities with age while wild-type worms lose neuronal function, we carried out neuron-specific transcriptomics analysis in young (adult Day 1) and aged (Day 8) wild-type animals, and aged (Day 8) IIS/FOXO mutants, using FACS sorting. Here we deposit the sequences for wild-type adult neurons in Day 1 and Day 8, and IIS/FOXO mutant neurons in Day 8, as well as their age-controlled whole-worm RNA-seq sequences as controls. Total RNA library was prepared with ribosomal RNA depletion using Ovation SoLo RNA-Seq library preparation kit from Tecan Genomics. Sequencing was performed on Illumina Novaseq 6000 S1 100nt platform.