Person:

Cicconet, Marcelo

Activity-dependent transcriptional responses shape cortical function. However, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the diversity of these responses across the full range of cortical cell types, and how these changes contribute to neuronal plasticity and disease. Here we applied high-throughput single-cell RNA-sequencing to investigate the breadth of transcriptional changes that occur across cell types in mouse visual cortex following exposure to light. We identified significant and divergent transcriptional responses to stimulation in each of the 30 cell types characterized, revealing 611 stimulus-responsive genes. Excitatory pyramidal neurons exhibit inter- and intra-laminar heterogeneity in the induction of stimulus responsive genes. Non-neuronal cells demonstrated clear transcriptional responses that may regulate experience-dependent changes in neurovascular coupling and myelination. Together, these results reveal the dynamic landscape of stimulus-dependent transcriptional changes that occur across cell types in visual cortex, which are likely critical for cortical function and may be sites of de-regulation in developmental brain disorders.

Spatial mapping of proteins in tissues is hindered by limitations in multiplexing, sensitivity and throughput. Here we report immunostaining with signal amplification by exchange reaction (Immuno-SABER), which achieves highly multiplexed signal amplification via DNA-barcoded antibodies and orthogonal DNA concatemers generated by primer exchange reaction (PER). SABER offers independently programmable signal amplification without in situ enzymatic reactions, and intrinsic scalability to rapidly amplify and visualize a large number of targets when combined with fast exchange cycles of fluorescent imager strands. We demonstrate 5- to 180-fold signal amplification in diverse samples (cultured cells, cryosections, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded sections and whole-mount tissues), as well as simultaneous signal amplification for ten different proteins using standard equipment and workflows. We also combined SABER with expansion microscopy to enable rapid, multiplexed super-resolution tissue imaging. Immuno-SABER presents an effective and accessible platform for multiplexed and amplified imaging of proteins with high sensitivity and throughput.