In this episode of the Epigenetics Podcast, we caught up with Tim Petros from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the NIH to talk about his work on Single Cell Epigenomics in Neuronal Development. 

The Petros lab focuses on “interneurons”, their diversity and how environmental signals interact to generate this diversity. This subgroup of neurons comprise about 20% of neutrons in the brain, however, they are the primary source of inhibition. Furthermore, interneurons are critical components in modulating information flow throughout the nervous system. The Petros lab seeks to uncover the genetic programs that lead to the incredible diversity in interneurons, as well as how the local environment influences this process. 

To lay a foundation for this and to provide a data-base for other researchers the Petros lab generated an epigenome atlas of neural progenitor cells of the mouse brain. This data includes scRNA-Seq, snATAC-Seq, CUT&Tag (H3K4me3, H3K27me3), CUT&RUN (H3K27ac), Hi-C and Capture-C. This data can be downloaded at the link below:  

https://www.nichd.nih.gov/research/atNICHD/Investigators/petros/data-sharing 

References

Datasets: https://www.nichd.nih.gov/research/atNICHD/Investigators/petros/data-sharing

Quattrocolo G, Fishell G, Petros TJ. Heterotopic Transplantations Reveal Environmental Influences on Interneuron Diversity and Maturation. Cell Rep. 2017 Oct 17;21(3):721-731. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.09.075. PMID: 29045839; PMCID: PMC5662128.

Dongjin R Lee, Christopher Rhodes, Apratim Mitra, Yajun Zhang, Dragan Maric, Ryan K Dale, Timothy J Petros (2022) Transcriptional heterogeneity of ventricular zone cells in the ganglionic eminences of the mouse forebrain eLife 11:e71864 https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71864

Rhodes, C. T., Thompson, J. J., Mitra, A., Asokumar, D., Lee, D. R., Lee, D. J., Zhang, Y., Jason, E., Dale, R. K., Rocha, P. P., & Petros, T. J. (2022). An epigenome atlas of neural progenitors within the embryonic mouse forebrain. Nature communications, 13(1), 4196. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31793-4

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