Genetic Tags Illuminate Where Neurons Extend

Barcodes of mRNA travel to the cells' axon terminals, offering a sequencing-based approach to neural mapping.

Written byRuth Williams

| 1 min read

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To determine where in the mouse brain individual neurons have axon terminals, researchers inject a library of viral vectors in the vicinity of cell bodies. The viruses contain plasmids each encoding a unique
RNA barcode and a presynaptic protein called MAPP-nλ that will shuttle the barcoded mRNA to the ends of the axon. Typically, each cell takes up only one virus, giving that cell an RNA identifier. Dissecting brain regions and sequencing the RNAs reveals which cells project where.

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Meet the Author

Ruth Williams
Ruth is a freelance journalist. Before freelancing, Ruth was a news editor for the Journal of Cell Biology in New York and an assistant editor for Nature Reviews Neuroscience in London. Prior to that, she was a bona fide pipette-wielding, test tube–shaking, lab coat–shirking research scientist. She has a PhD in genetics from King’s College London, and was a postdoc in stem cell biology at Imperial College London. Today she lives and writes in Connecticut.
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