小柯机器人

美国哈佛医学院Sandeep Robert Datta课题组发现，一个转录流变器将过去的活动与未来的感觉反应联系起来。相关论文于2021年12月7日在线发表于国际学术期刊《细胞》。

研究人员发现，小鼠的1000多个嗅觉神经元（OSN）亚型中的每一个都有一个独特的转录组，其内容由其气味受体和环境之间的相互作用精确决定。这种转录变化被系统地组织起来用于支持感官适应：70多个与将气味转化为脉冲的基因的表达水平在OSN亚型之间持续变化，在数小时内动态地适应新环境，并准确地预测急性OSN特定的气味反应。因此，感觉外周通过一个转录流变器将突出的信号从可预测的背景中分离出来，该流变器的时刻状态反映了过去并制约了未来；这些发现提出了一个通用模型：细胞类型内结构化的转录变化反映了个体经验。

据悉，穿越不同环境的动物既会遇到稳定的背景刺激，也会遇到新的线索，这些线索被认为是由初级感觉神经元检测出来的，然后由下游的大脑回路加以区分。

附：英文原文

Title: A transcriptional rheostat couples past activity to future sensory responses

Author: Tatsuya Tsukahara, David H. Brann, Stan L. Pashkovski, Grigori Guitchounts, Thomas Bozza, Sandeep Robert Datta

Issue&Volume: 2021-12-07

Abstract: Animals traversing different environments encounter both stable background stimuli and novel cues, which are thought to be detected by primary sensory neurons and then distinguished by downstream brain circuits. Here, we show that each of the ～1,000 olfactory sensory neuron (OSN) subtypes in the mouse harbors a distinct transcriptome whose content is precisely determined by interactions between its odorant receptor and the environment. This transcriptional variation is systematically organized to support sensory adaptation: expression levels of more than 70 genes relevant to transforming odors into spikes continuously vary across OSN subtypes, dynamically adjust to new environments over hours, and accurately predict acute OSN-specific odor responses. The sensory periphery therefore separates salient signals from predictable background via a transcriptional rheostat whose moment-to-moment state reflects the past and constrains the future; these findings suggest a general model in which structured transcriptional variation within a cell type reflects individual experience.

DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.11.022

Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)01337-4