Bioorthogonal Metabolic Labeling of Nascent RNA in Neurons Improves the Sensitivity of Transcriptome-Wide Profiling

Transcriptome-wide expression profiling of neurons has provided important insights into the underlying molecular mechanisms and gene expression patterns that transpire during learning and memory formation. However, there is a paucity of tools for profiling stimulus-induced RNA within specific neuronal cell populations. A bioorthogonal method to chemically label nascent (i.e., newly transcribed) RNA in a cell-type-specific and temporally controlled manner, which is also amenable to bioconjugation via click chemistry, was recently developed and optimized within conventional immortalized cell lines. However, its value within a more fragile and complicated cellular system such as neurons, as well as for transcriptome-wide expression profiling, has yet to be demonstrated. Here, we report the visualization and sequencing of activity-dependent nascent RNA derived from neurons using this labeling method. This work has important implications for improving transcriptome-wide expression profiling and visualization of nascent RNA in neurons, which has the potential to provide valuable insights into the mechanisms underlying neural plasticity, learning, and memory.