Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientists have profiled key features of the genetic material inside three types of brain cells and found vast differences in the patterns of chemical modifications that affect how the genes in each type of neuron are regulated. The analysis was made possible by a new method of collecting and purifying the nuclei of specific kinds of cells. Doing this type of study on cells in brain tissue has been challenging because the cells are densely packed and intimately intertwined.
A team of scientists led by Jeremy Nathans, an HHMI investigator at Johns Hopkins University, and Joseph Ecker, an HHMI investigator at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, published the findings June 18, 2015, in the journal Neuron. Nathans and Ecker collaborated on the studies with researchers in the labs of HHMI investigator Terrence Sejnowski at Salk and Sean Eddy, a group leader at HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus. The researchers say the new method for obtaining cell-type specific nuclei, an adaptation of technology previously used in plants, will enable a wide range of studies in mammalian tissues.