Brain-wide and cell-specific transcriptomic insights into MRI-derived cortical morphology in macaque monkeys

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Genomics
• Comparative Biology

Background:

• Integrative transcriptomic and neuroimaging analyses offer insights into human brain phenotypes.
• A comprehensive, anatomically defined atlas of brain transcriptomics in nonhuman primates is lacking.
• Understanding nonhuman primate brain gene expression is crucial for comparative studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To create a comprehensive transcriptomic and neuroimaging dataset for cynomolgus macaques.
• To investigate the relationship between brain-wide gene expression and regional morphometric variation.
• To establish a resource for studying primate brain evolution and disease models.

Main Methods:

• Generated bulk and single-nucleus RNA-sequencing data from 110 macaque brain regions.
• Acquired neuroimaging data from 162 cynomolgus macaques.
• Performed integrative analyses correlating gene expression with brain morphometry.

Main Results:

• Macaque brain gene expression profiles are comparable to human brain profiles.
• Identified a dorsolateral-ventromedial gene expression gradient in the primate frontal lobe.
• Discovered 971 protein-coding and 34 non-coding genes associated with cortical thickness, enriched in neurons and oligodendrocytes.

Conclusions:

• The generated dataset provides a valuable resource for nonhuman primate brain research.
• Findings facilitate the investigation of nonhuman primate models for human diseases.
• Enables probing cross-species evolutionary mechanisms of brain structure and function.