Single cell transcriptome atlas of the Drosophila larval brain

  1. Clarisse Brunet Avalos
  2. Rémy Bruggmann
  3. Simon G Sprecher  Is a corresponding author
  1. University of Fribourg, Switzerland
  2. University of Bern, Switzerland

Abstract

Cell diversity of the brain and how it is affected by starvation, remains largely unknown. Here we introduce a single cell transcriptome atlas of the entire Drosophila first instar larval brain. We first assigned cell-type identity based on known marker genes, distinguishing five major groups: neural progenitors, differentiated neurons, glia, undifferentiated neurons and non-neural cells. All major classes were further subdivided into multiple subtypes, revealing biological features of various cell-types. We further assessed transcriptional changes in response to starvation at the single-cell level. While after starvation the composition of the brain remains unaffected, transcriptional profile of several cell clusters changed. Intriguingly, different cell-types show very distinct responses to starvation, suggesting the presence of cell-specific programs for nutrition availability. Establishing a single-cell transcriptome atlas of the larval brain provides a powerful tool to explore cell diversity and assess genetic profiles from developmental, functional and behavioral perspectives.

Data availability

The single-cell sequencing data has been deposited in GEO under the accession code GSE134722.

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Clarisse Brunet Avalos

    Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Rémy Bruggmann

    Department of Biology, Institute of Cell Biology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-4733-7922
  3. Simon G Sprecher

    Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
    For correspondence
    simon.sprecher@unifr.ch
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9060-3750

Funding

Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (31003A_149499)

  • Simon G Sprecher

Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (SystemsX- SynaptiX RTD)

  • Rémy Bruggmann
  • Simon G Sprecher

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. K VijayRaghavan, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India

Version history

  1. Received: July 19, 2019
  2. Accepted: November 19, 2019
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: November 20, 2019 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: December 5, 2019 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2019, Brunet Avalos et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Clarisse Brunet Avalos
  2. Rémy Bruggmann
  3. Simon G Sprecher
(2019)
Single cell transcriptome atlas of the Drosophila larval brain
eLife 8:e50354.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.50354

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