RESEARCH ARTICLE Single-cell and single-nucleus RNA-seq uncovers shared and distinct axes of variation in dorsal LGN neurons in mice, non-human primates, and humans Trygve E Bakken1†, Cindy TJ van Velthoven1†, Vilas Menon1,2†, Rebecca D Hodge1, Zizhen Yao1, Thuc Nghi Nguyen1, Lucas T Graybuck1, Gregory D Horwitz3, Darren Bertagnolli1, Jeff Goldy1, Anna Marie Yanny1, Emma Garren1, Sheana Parry1, Tamara Casper1, Soraya I Shehata1, Eliza R Barkan1, Aaron Szafer1, Boaz P Levi1, Nick Dee1, Kimberly A Smith1, Susan M Sunkin1, Amy Bernard1, John Phillips1, Michael J Hawrylycz1, Christof Koch1, Gabe J Murphy1, Ed Lein1, Hongkui Zeng1, Bosiljka Tasic1* 1Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, United States; 2Department of Neurology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, United States; 3Washington National Primate Research Center and Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Washington, Seattle, United States Abstract Abundant evidence supports the presence of at least three distinct types of thalamocortical (TC) neurons in the primate dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) of the thalamus, the brain region that conveys visual information from the retina to the primary visual cortex (V1). Different types of TC neurons in mice, humans, and macaques have distinct morphologies, distinct connectivity patterns, and convey different aspects of visual information to *For correspondence: the cortex. To investigate the molecular underpinnings of these cell types, and how these relate to
[email protected] differences in dLGN between human, macaque, and mice, we profiled gene expression in single †These authors contributed nuclei and cells using RNA-sequencing. These efforts identified four distinct types of TC neurons in equally to this work the primate dLGN: magnocellular (M) neurons, parvocellular (P) neurons, and two types of koniocellular (K) neurons.