BioProject

The adult mammalian brain is composed of distinct regions that have specialized roles. More...

The adult mammalian brain is composed of distinct regions that have specialized roles. To dissect molecularly this complex structure, we conducted a project, named the BrainStars (B*) project, in which we sampled ~50 small brain regions, including sensory centers and centers for motion, time, memory, fear, and feeding. To avoid confusion from temporal differences in gene expression, we sampled each region every 4 hours for 24 hours, and pooled the sample sets for DNA-microarray assays. Therefore, we focused only on spatial differences in gene expression. We then used informatics to identify candidates for (1) genes with high or low expression in specific regions, (2) switch-like genes with bimodal or multimodal expression patterns, and (3) genes with a uni-modal expression pattern that exhibit stable or variable levels of expression across brain regions. We used our findings to develop an integrated database (http://brainstars.org/) for exploring genome-wide expression in the adult mouse brain. Overall design: For 51 CNS regions, slices (0.5-mm thick) of mouse brain were cut on a Mouse Brain Matrix, frozen, and the specific regions were punched out bilaterally with a microdissecting needle (gauge 0.5 mm) under a stereomicroscope. For each region, we took samples every 4 hours, starting at ZT0 (Zeitgaber time 0; the time of lights on), for 24 hours (6 time-point samples for each region), and we pooled the samples from the different time points. We independently sampled each region twice (n=2). Less...