Fig. 4: Regionally distinct gene expression patterns for migratory neurons in postnatal cortical streams.
a, Left, schematic representation indicating the postnatal migratory streams analyzed for profiling cellular subtypes in the P2 piglet brain—dorsal migratory streams into the anterior and posterior CC from the Arc (i), ventral streams into the PirC from the Arc (ii) and ventral streams into the TC from the Arc (iii). Right, schematic representation showing the experimental design for P2 piglet spatial transcriptomics. b, Left, smFISH confocal images of each stream showing examples of DCX+ cells expressing GAD1, NKX2.1, LHX6, MAF1, PROX1, COUP-TFII, SCGN, SP8 and PAX6, which are associated with GE. Right, smFISH confocal images of each cortical region showing examples of heterogeneous interneuron types expressing GAD1, CALB2, VIP, SST and CXCR4. Scale bars, 25 µm. c, UMAP projections colored by cell identity. n = 1,992 DCX+ cells (see source data for details). d, Topographic mapping of migratory neuron subtypes in each stream. From bottom to top shows the migratory stream from the Arc to their final cortical region, that is, CC (left), PirC (middle) and TC (right). e, Nearest neighbor analysis in dorsal and ventral migratory streams. The gray line indicates a significant interaction between cell subtypes. The line thickness is correlated with the distance between the cell subtypes. Colored circles represent each cell subtype. A larger circle size indicates a higher number of cells within the cell subtype. The ventral streams show a higher interaction between cell subtypes. f, Dot plot illustrating gene expression pattern for receptors for neuronal migration across subtypes. g, Dot plot illustrating gene expression pattern for receptors across individual and clump migrating cells. h, Coronal images of a human 39 GW showing dorsal and ventral migratory streams of, primarily, COUP-TFII+SP8+DCX+ migratory neurons from the Arc. i, White arrows indicate COUP-TFII+SP8+ clumps in the ventral stream expressing VLDLR. White arrows indicate individually migratory cells expressing LHX6, SST and CXCR4 in the dorsal stream. This experiment has been repeated three times (h–j).
