The Neuronal Transcriptome of Aplysia californica: A Platform for the Neurogenomics of Defined Neurons, Neuronal Compartments and Neuronal Circuitry

 

Leonid L. Moroz,^1,2,8* John R. Edwards,^3,8 Sathyanarayanan V Puthanveettil,^4,8 Andrea Kohn,^1,8 Thomas Ha,^1,2 Andreas Heyland,¹ Bjarne Knudsen,¹ Anuj Sahni,¹ Fahong Yu,^1,5 Li Liu,^1,5 Sami Jezzini,^1,2 Ruslan Sadreyev,¹ Peter Lovell,¹ William Iannucculli,³ Minchen Chen,³ Tuan Nguyen,³ Huitao Sheng,³ Regina Shaw,^1,5 Sergey Kalachikov,³ Yuri Panchin,¹ William Farmerie,⁵ James J. Russo,³ Jingyue Ju,^3,7* Eric R. Kandel^4,6*

 

¹The Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, University of Florida, 9505 Ocean Shore Blvd., St. Augustine, FL 32080

²Dept of Neuroscience and McKnight Brain Institute, 100 S. Newell Drive

Bldg. 59, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611

³Columbia Genome Center, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, 1150 St. Nicholas Ave., New York, NY 10032

⁴Center for Neurobiology & Behavior and New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University, 1051 Riverside Drive, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032

⁵Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611

⁶Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 1051 Riverside Drive, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032

⁷Department of Chemical Engineering, Columbia University, 500 W. 120^th St., New York, NY 10027

 

Abstract

Molecular analyses of Aplysia, a well-established model organism for cellular and systems neural science, have been seriously handicapped by a lack of adequate genomic information. By sequencing cDNA libraries from the central nervous system (CNS), we have identified over 175,000 expressed sequence tags (ESTs), of which 19,814 are unique neuronal gene products and represent 50-70% of the total Aplysia neuronal transcriptome. We have characterized the transcriptome at three levels: (1) the central nervous system, (2) the elementary components of a simple behavior: the gill-withdrawal reflex -- by analyzing sensory, motor, and serotonergic modulatory neurons, and (3) processes of individual neurons. In addition to increasing the amount of available gene sequences of Aplysia by two orders of magnitude, this collection represents the largest database available for any member of the Lophotrochozoa and therefore provides additional insights into evolutionary strategies used by this highly successful diversified lineage, one of the three proposed superclades of bilateral animals.