Different neuronal activity patterns induce different gene expression programs [ChIP-seq]

A vast number of different neuronal activity patterns could each induce a different set of activity-regulated genes. Mapping this coupling between activity pattern and gene induction would allow inference of a neuron's activity-pattern history from its gene expression and deepen our mechanistic understanding of activity pattern-dependent synaptic plasticity. In genome-scale experiments comparing brief and sustained activity patterns, we reveal that activity-pattern history can indeed be inferred from gene expression state. We find that brief activity selectively induces a small subset of the activity-regulated gene program that corresponds to the first of three temporal waves of genes induced by sustained activity. These first-wave genes are mechanistically distinct from genes in the later waves because their induction requires MAPK/ERK signaling but does not require de novo translation. Thus, the same mechanisms that establish the multi-wave temporal structure of gene induction also enable different gene sets to be induced by different activity patterns. ChIP-seq data from neurons in the presence/absense of MEK inhibition and neuronal activity.