Abstract
We describe a method to map the location of axonal arbors of many individual neurons simultaneously via the spectral properties of retrogradely transported dye-labeled vesicles. We inject overlapping regions of an axon target area with three or more different colored retrograde tracers. On the basis of the combinations and intensities of the colors in the individual vesicles transported to neuronal somata, we calculate the projection sites of each neuron's axon. This neuronal positioning system (NPS) enables mapping of many axons in a simple automated way. In our experiments, NPS combined with spectral (Brainbow) labeling of the input to autonomic ganglion cells showed that the locations of ganglion cell projections to a mouse salivary gland related to the identities of their preganglionic axonal innervation. NPS could also delineate projections of many axons simultaneously in the mouse central nervous system.
Original language | American English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 547-552 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Nature Methods |
Volume | 12 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 28 May 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Support is gratefully acknowledged from the Humans Frontiers Science Foundation (S.T.), European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 260914 (S.T., S.G. and A.M.B.), US National Institute of Mental Health Silvio Conte Center 1P50MH094271 (J.W.L.) and US National Institutes of Health grant NS076467 (J.W.L.). We thank R. Kafri for helping generating the Matlab code.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.