Fig. 4: Upper lip recipient thalamic neurons switch their transcriptional program to that of whisker-pad neurons.

a Top left, schema representing the paradigm. Top right and bottom, coronal images showing the dissected thalamic territories for sequencing. b Quantification of the dissected area with respect to the distance to the dLG nucleus (n = 4 wpVPM-ctrl slices, n = 4 ulVPM-ctrl slices, and n = 4 ulWPC embWPC slices, 4 mice per condition). c Principal component analysis (PCA) of wpVPM-ctrl (n = 4), ulVPM-ctrl (n = 4), and ulVPM-embWPC (n = 4) at P0. d Heatmap of the normalized regularized logarithm (Rlog) Z-score of expression and unbiased clustering of region-specific DEGs showing their expression profile in the ulVPM of the embWPC at P0. The color code (yellow, high expression; purple, low expression) corresponds to the log2FC. e Left, C-support vector machine (C-SVM) analysis identifies the optimal demarcation plane between wpVPM (magenta dots) and ulVPM population (cyan dots). The ulVPM-embWPC samples are identified as wpVPM control based on its gene expression pattern (red dots). Right, the prediction score value of ulVPM-embWPC is classified as wpVPM (70%) or ulVPM (30%) controls. f Number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) obtained in their respective differential expression analysis. g Venn diagram shows the number of genes modified by embWPC in ulVPM overlapped in every subset of region-specific DEGs. h Heatmap of the normalized regularized logarithm (Rlog) Z-score of expression and unbiased clustering of region-specific DEGs whose expression was modified by embWPC in the ulVPM at P0. The color code (yellow, high expression; purple, low expression) corresponds to the log2FC. i Boxplots showing TPM expression levels of selected wpVPM-specific and ulVPM-specific DEGs modified by embWPC in the ulVPM. Boxplots show the medians with the interquartile range (box) and range (whiskers). j Coronal sections showing in situ hybridization of wpVPM and ulVPM DEGS at P0 (n = 5 ctrl, n = 5 embWPC, for each probe). k Schema illustrating the results. Source data are provided as a Source data file. VPM, ventroposterior medial nucleus. Scale bars, 200 μm. *adj. p < 0.1, **adj. p < 0.01, and ***adj. p < 0.001.