PLX304126

GSE140231: A human single cell atlas of the substantia nigra reveals novel cell specific pathways associated with the genetic risk of Parkinsons disease and neuropsychiatric disorders

• Organsim human
• Type RNASEQ
• Target gene
• Project ARCHS4

We describe the first human single-nuclei transcriptomic atlas for substantia nigra (SN), generated by sequencing ~ 17,000 nuclei from matched cortical and SN samples. We show that common genetic risk for Parkinsons disease (PD) is associated with dopaminergic neuron (DaN)-specific gene expression including mitochondrial functioning, protein folding and ubiquitination pathways. We also identified a distinct cell-type association between PD risk and oligodendrocyte-specific expression implicating metabolic and gene expression regulation networks. Beyond PD, we find SN DaNs and GABAergic neurons to be associated with different neuropsychiatric disorders, particularly schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BP). We identified distinct cortex/SN associations with SCZ genetic risk for both excitatory (synaptic functioning) and dopaminergic neurons (mitochondrial functioning and synaptic signalling). Conditional analyses shows that independent sets of loci associate distinct neuropsychiatric disorders with the same neuronal types. This atlas guides our aetiological understanding by associating SN cell-type expression profiles with specific disease risk. SOURCE: Caleb Webber (webberc4@cardiff.ac.uk) - UK Dementia Research Institute Cardiff University